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a: presenting in front of a large audience with industry leaders present from several multinational companies was a really rewarding experience as a team we learned how to work under pressure and draw on each others skills i feel like this event has made me a more well-rounded engineer - tofazzal rashid a: filming the video it was so different and funny and it worked out very well in the end - josephine leong
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a: i used this experience and the skills i demonstrated and gained in a job interview it really impressed my interviewers - tofazzal rashid
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a: i picked this need statement as i liked the social aspects and thinking that would be required in order to produce an effective solution as engineers i think we often overlook social considerations in our engineering interventions thinking about social implications to engineering solutions is critical for sustainability - tofazzal rashid a: i myself could relate to the need statement it is a problem i believe most people face sometime in their life especially with the growth of social media and technology i was interested in finding an innovative solution to it that can not only make a difference but is also achievable in a short amount of time - sajal gurung
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their next plan of action is to present their product at the ‘big pitch a competition held at swansea university there they will have an opportunity to present in front of business leaders if they win they could receive funding office space and business advisers to help develop the product further
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the invent for the planet final competition is wednesday april 24th at 2 pm in the zach chevron rooms for more information view our website
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the texas a&m university college of engineering honored nine alumni during the 2019 outstanding alumni awards banquet receiving the outstanding alumni honor award were david d dunlap ‘83 james t hopper sr ‘68 peter d huddleston ‘80 william b hurd ‘99 michael j plank ‘83 aleida rios ‘91 ronald e smith ‘80 lee m tillman ‘84 and j mike walker 66 outstanding alumni honor awards david d dunlap ‘83petroleum engineeringpresident and chief executive officer of superior energy services david d dunlap is president and chief executive officer of superior energy services a position he has held since 2010 superior energy services supports the oil and gas industry worldwide through its drilling products and services subsea and intervention technologies and broad ranging marine services prior to joining superior dunlap was executive vice president and chief operating officer for bj services company during a 25-year career with the company he served in a variety of engineering operations and management positions including president of the companys international division and vice president of division sales he received the 2013 transformational ceo award for the united states gulf coast area presented by ernst & young as part of the organizations entrepreneur of the year awards program in 2017 he was named to the academy of distinguished graduates of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m and in 2018 was inducted into the texas a&m corps of cadets hall of honor dunlap earned his bachelor of science degree in petroleum engineering in 1983 from texas a&m he and his wife anne have six children: maggie 11 emily grace 18 john mary 22 and tess 22 james t hopper sr 68engineering technology & industrial distributionowner of megahertz technology inc james t hopper owns and operates megahertz technology inc which he founded in 1985 he has designed implemented and maintained radio systems for a variety of businesses that require quick radio communications hopper served in the us army and upon completion of his service he was offered a job as a logic design engineer at collins radio company which later became rockwell international he later worked for the xerox corporation where he spent 10 years as an inventory operations manager for the southern us the us secret service honored him with a certificate of appreciation for his help coordinating communications in dallas when five us presidents came to town to open the bush library in 2013 he is a member of the texas a&m legacy society and a member of the endowed century club for the past three years he has sponsored and mentored capstone teams within the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution texas a&m engineering technology group hopper earned his bachelor of science degree in industrial technology from texas a&m in 1969 and later received his master of business administration from texas a&m university-commerce in 1980 he and his wife kathleen have a son jamie peter d huddlestonpetroleum engineeringpresident and chairman of huddleston & co inc peter d huddleston is president and chairman of huddleston & co inc which provides petroleum engineering and evaluation services to public and private oil and gas entities financial institutions legal firms and individuals huddleston has worked his entire career within the huddleston organization he was also owner of the peter paul petroleum company until 2017 a founding member and chairman of continental operating company and founding member and director of cima energy ltd he is a member of the petroleum engineering advisory board petroleum ventures program advisory board bush school of government and public service advisory board and texas a&m at galveston board of visitors he has authored and presented various papers to the society of petroleum engineers department of petroleum engineering corps of cadets students at the bush school seminars for the petroleum industry and continuing education programs for bar association members huddleston earned his bachelor of science degree in petroleum engineering in 1980 from texas a&m he and his wife kathy 81 have two children will and katherine 16 will b hurd 99computer science and engineeringus house of representatives texas district 23 will b hurd is the first member to serve the 23rd district of texas in congress for three consecutive terms in a decade he serves on the house permanent select committee on intelligence where he serves as the top republican on the subcommittee on intelligence modernization and readiness he was also selected by republican leader kevin mccarthy this year to serve on the house appropriations committee where he is a member of the subcommittees on military construction and veterans affairs along with transportation housing and urban development upon graduating from texas a&m hurd joined the central intelligence agency where he was one of the first called in to fight the global war on terror following 9/11 he served in the middle east and south asia for nearly a decade collecting intelligence that influenced the national security agenda upon leaving the cia he became a senior advisor with a cybersecurity firm covering a wide range of complex challenges faced by manufacturers financial institutions retailers and critical infrastructure owners hurd earned his bachelor of science degree in computer science and engineering from texas a&m in 1999 michael j plank 83mechanical engineeringchairman and ceo of the plank companies inc michael j plank is chairman and ceo of the plank companies inc a diversified holding company with numerous investments and operating entities engaged in industrial real estate rail services and manufacturing in 2015 plank was appointed by gov greg abbott to serve on the board of the governors university research initiative he was appointed by lt gov dan patrick to the port authority advisory committee in 2017 and as chairman of the transportation and port advisory board in 2019 he was appointed in 2018 by abbott to serve on the texas higher education coordinating board and was appointed to the texas a&m university system board of regents in 2019 he is past president of the trench shoring & shielding association of america houston equipment distributors and childrens museum of houston he serves on the college of engineering advisory council and commandants advisory council for texas a&ms corps of cadets plank earned his bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from texas a&m in 1983 and was inducted into the departments academy of distinguished graduates in 2000 he and his wife susan have two children kendall 19 and jared aleida rios 91chemical engineeringhead of upstream engineering-bp aleida rios is head of upstream engineering reporting to bps chief operating officer throughout her 27-year career at bp she has held a variety of leadership positions in operations and engineering her most recent role was vice president of operations for the gulf of mexico operated assets and prior to that she held the same role in bps north america gas she serves on the companys supplier diversity council is chair of bps women international networks globally and is active with the business resource groups to promote diversity and inclusion she was recognized by financial times as ranking fifth among its top ethnic minority executives in 2018 hispanic executive magazine for being a stem advocate and was recognized as the 10th most powerful latina by the association of latino professionals for america and fortune magazine in 2017 she earned a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering in 1991 from texas a&m and is a member of the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering advisory board she and her husband eduardo have three sons anthony gabriel ‘22 and benjamin ronald e smith 80ocean engineeringpresident chief executive officer and director of deep down inc ronald e smith and his wife mary budrunas founded deep down inc in 1997 smith has served as chief executive officer president and director since december 2006 prior to that he was the companys president smith was the first recipient of the texas a&m university ocean engineering outstanding alumni award additionally he serves on the ocean engineering advisory board and is a mentor to the texas a&m aggie shell ocean discovery xprize team smith worked both onshore and offshore in management positions for ocean drilling and exploration company oceaneering multiflex mustang engineering and kvaerner before founding deep down smith is directly responsible for the invention or development of many innovative solutions for the offshore industry including the first steel-tube flying lead installation system he is also credited for the new patented loose steel-tube flying leads subsea deployment systems new subsea j-plates and the recently patented non-helical umbilical which is a mobile steel-tube umbilical production facility employing a new concept to build steel-tube umbilicals smith earned his bachelor of science degree in ocean engineering from texas a&m in 1981 lee m tillman 84chemical engineeringchairman president and chief executive officer of marathon oil corporation lee m tillman is president and ceo of marathon oil corporation and chairman of the marathon oil corporation board of directors he joined the company in august 2013 he previously served as vice president of engineering for exxonmobil development company where he was responsible for all global engineering staff engaged in major project concept selection front-end design and engineering he served as north sea production manager and lead country manager for subsidiaries of exxonmobil in stavanger norway from 2007-10 and as acting vice president of exxonmobil upstream research company from 2006-07 he is a board member of the american petroleum institute and the american exploration & production council a member of the university of houston energy advisory board and the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering advisory board and college of engineering advisory council at texas a&m he is also a member of the national petroleum council business roundtable and society of petroleum engineers he serves as a member of the celebration of reading committee within the barbara bush houston literacy foundation and is a member of the advisory board of spindletop charities tillman earned a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from texas a&m in 1984 and his doctoral degree in chemical engineering from auburn university in 1989 j mike walker 66mechanical engineeringco-founder chairman president and ceo dril-quip j mike walker co-founded dril-quip in april 1981 and served as chairman president and ceo until his retirement upon graduating from texas a&m with a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering where he was number one in his class and earning a masters degree in mechanical engineering from the university of texas at austin he began working with exxon refining after four years at exxon walker returned to texas a&m and earned a doctoral degree in mechanical engineering in 1974 he then returned to exxon working at exxon production research company in the offshore department as a subsea engineer he subsequently worked for mcevoy and vetco offshore before partnering with two vetco vice presidents (larry e reimert and gary d smith) to form a private company dril-quip in april 1981 the three co-founders and co-ceos began developing innovative products grew the company and took it public on the new york stock exchange under the ticker symbol drq with an initial public offering on oct 23 1997 in 2011 walker retired from his role as chairman president and ceo as well as the largest shareholder of the publicly traded company which had a market cap in excess of $4 billion and some 2 200 employees at its various manufacturing sales and service centers around the world walker was inducted into the distinguished mechanical engineering academies at both texas a&m and ut austin as well as the huntington red devil basketball hall of fame before his passing in december 2018 walker contributed $20 million each to name the mechanical engineering departments at both texas a&m and ut austin he is survived by his wife donna and children lawrence tate amanda tate and melinda papp
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carpe diem seize the day if there was a motto for electrical engineering undergraduate brittney nelsons time at texas a&m university and in the department of electrical and computer engineering it would be that from her freshman year experience studying abroad in san miguel de allende mexico to her ongoing involvement with the zachry leadership program she has seized every opportunity that has made itself available to her as she looks forward to her final year at texas a&m nelson took a moment to reflect on how she proved that where theres a whim theres a way
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q: what inspired you to participate in a study abroad program a: honestly it was kind of on a whim when i was a freshman i was in the living learning community in mosher hall and the program leaders were talking about how to work with people around the globe when they offered this new opportunity to go to san miguel de allende i decided ‘why not it was really eye-opening to learn about the different aspects of engineering in mexico and was a good overall experience that allowed me to grow as an individual while furthering my professional development q: is there something that really stood out to you from your time in mexico a: i would say the culture we stayed in a hacienda instead of a hotel and got to meet with a lot of locals and university students it was nice because it wasnt something typical or something ive ever done before that made me realize there's a lot more that i need to explore about the world and there's a lot of different people that i still need to meet so that inspired me to just keep going q: what is your main takeaway from studying abroad a: that the possibilities are endless even though i didnt know that much about study abroad at that time just going changed my outlook on a lot of different things and made me realize that theres a lot of great opportunities that texas a&m can offer
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q: how did that experience lead you to get involved in the zachry leadership program a: while on my study abroad trip i met a lot of people in the zachry leadership program and they inspired me to apply to the program because they were great bubbly people that were really charismatic i wanted to be like them its a great program that allows you to explore and do a lot of things that you most likely wouldnt learn in engineering like empathy and self-awareness or curiosity and creativity topics that arent readily explained in engineering so i was really excited about that q: how has the program helped you develop as a person and an engineer a: i get to delve into different things such as creativity and learn how to implement them into my daily lifestyle see how it helps me with academics and to just be an overall better person it has allowed me to learn about myself and figure out what my strengths and weaknesses are and how to cope with stress and work with people who are different than me while using empathy and self-awareness
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and as an engineer its helped me be more creative and think outside of the box to find new solutions that most people wouldnt think of it overall made me into a really good leader q: do you have any plans or goals for after graduation a: since i'm an electrical engineering major i plan to go into the tech industry before getting my mba and possibly doing a start-up ultimately i want to get to a point in my life where i can give back to my community by starting a program to help inner-city and minority kids get acclimated and introduced to stem-related opportunities
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during south by southwest (sxsw) 2019 the spacecraft exploration challenge offered teams this test: rescue an astronaut that has crashed on a planet in the trappist-1 system using artificial intelligence (ai) virtual reality (vr) robotics and machine learning the objective of the hackathon-style competition was to test a teams ability to program a robot to interact with its environment to successfully perform the rescue operation using pathfinding and terrain/object recognition teams across texas competed in the event including students from texas a&m university the university of texas the university of texas rio grande valley and texas a&m university-corpus christi the competition used python code that interfaced with the spacecraft vr platform built by the aerospace technology research & operations (astro) lab in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university
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the first two days of competition were spent in intense coding and debugging each team acted as a crew charged with reprogramming a geology rovers navigation software to become faster and more autonomous than was needed for its original mission the teams had to code their own ai algorithms to improve the rovers navigation and path planning capabilities with knowledge of the terrain around them and the terrain theyd already explored their rover was required to search and find the astronauts crash site in the most efficient way possible while avoiding hazards using the algorithms designed by the team
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for the final day of competition crews chose one person on their team to remotely operate the rover while inside vr in a simulated exoplanet habitat control room in this environment the contestants were given controls to set waypoints for the rover while the contestants algorithms considered maneuvers to avoid obstacles the area around the astronaut was deemed a dead zone where no human commands could reach the robot so it needed to rely on radio detection finding techniques to find the exact position of the astronauts beacon it was fascinating to hear each of the university teams talk about the different strategies they pursued during 48 hours of intense programming most teams did really well but only a few made it close to completing the rescue operation in time said professor greg chamitoff director of the astro lab and former nasa astronaut first place was awarded to team pathfinder v a joint team from texas a&m and the university of texas (ut) with tanner hoke mallory butt malachi mayfield and zach summers second place went to the matt damon retrieval team from ut with scott staniewicz rahul moghe tucker haydon lakshay narula and james bell and third place went to texas a&ms team ecentric with wesley myers maria dmitrievskaia paurushmani singh radhika soni and sean kersch-hamar
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this event was sponsored by several companies including dell computers nvidia vive future tech live nvidia nasa texas space grant and firefly aerospace prizes for the event included a signed book by neil degrasse tyson steam gift cards vive focus vr headsets and dell mobile workstations during the sxsw competition the spacecraft team ran demos of their vr platform for the general public with several space mission scenarios such as bases on the moon and mars spacewalk simulations and exoplanet trappist-1d the setting for the competition
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from the lovable astromech companions in star wars to the manipulative android ava in ex machina robotics has captured the hearts and minds of audiences around the world through works of science fiction harnessing these imaginative creations dr robin murphy raytheon professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is bringing fact to fiction by using popular mechanical characters to explain real-world robotics her ongoing series of publications include multiple journal articles a book titled robotics through science fiction and a popular blog under the same name i developed the idea of teaching artificial intelligence and robotics through science fiction as part of my 2014 faculty fellow for innovation in high-impact learning experiences these works all reflect that style of teaching said murphy by using pop culture references to demonstrate highly technical concepts murphy is presenting the reality of robotics in a new fresh way that is inviting and understandable to a wide audience in doing so her fun and playful twist on computer engineering allows people to learn about science and technology through the fictional characters that they have come to know and love making the experience both relatable and educational for example murphys most recent publication in the academic journal science robotics titled robot learning in science fiction explores the presentation of machine learning in written and film media as well as how these adaptations compare to actuality my science robotics articles typically identify when a robotics-related topic of interest such as machine learning first appeared in science fiction what predictions and implications were made and what science fiction got right said murphy in the case of machine learning hollywood has been a little overzealous from humanoid characters such as ava or star treks commander data to more mechanical representations like johnny 5 from short circuit science fiction has operated under two erroneous assumptions murphy explained in her publication the first assumption is that learning is as simple and ubiquitous of a task for robots as it is for humans and the second is that robotic learning and intelligence leads to sentience robots have been learning by demonstration since the 1970s when companies discovered that manually programming industrial manipulators for a new task was difficult and expensive yet factory robots are not sentient it is hard to imagine that this type of learning could be extended into the autonomy and self-awareness of johnny 5 or ava murphy wrote however science fiction did seem to accurately depict how difficult it is to get a robot to learn the correct thing murphy wrote for example in the novellete callahan and the wheelies the robot characters who undergo reinforcement learning to be mobile and navigate their surroundings inadvertently learn to associate their designer with being powered off causing them to run away from and attack him while that may seem far-fetched the reality is that when given incomplete goals and boundaries in their programming robots have mistakenly learned to do anything between walk on their elbows and deliberately lie about finding food to deceive competitors what can we take away from nearly 70 years of science fiction and scientific research that learning may seem easy for humans but is really hard for robots murphy wrote progress in robot learning is accelerating in the areas of recognition skills and intent but we should discard the notions that a robot will become a virtuoso at a new task overnight and that learning means sentience discover more of murphys publications in science robotics
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the national nuclear security administration (nnsa) partnered with texas a&m university to host nuclear security enterprise (nse) day on april 8 the event offered attendees the chance to learn about career opportunities and internships for all stem majors with the nnsa labs plants and sites dr donna mischell navarro chief human capital officer for the nnsa welcomed students in her keynote speech and encouraged them to consider a career with the nnsa she explained that the nse is made up of the nnsa and its labs plants and sites the nnsa maintains and enhances the safety security and effectiveness of the nations nuclear weapons stockpile; reduces global danger from weapons of mass destruction; provides the us navy with safe and effective nuclear propulsion; and responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies in the united states and abroad nse day also featured several undergraduate and graduate panel discussions aimed at answering any questions students might have about working within the nse a career with the nnsa is especially great for undergraduates to consider since the positions are structured in a way to help them build on skill sets they gained during their education said ben stallwitz 09 functional manager from the pantex plant in amarillo texas many companies will even support employees pursuing masters and phd degrees as well students also had the option to attend a career fair as a part of nse day to learn more about the critical work these entities perform to protect the nation the industry is literally looking to hire thousands of new employees from all kinds of backgrounds said benjamin grover division leader from lawrence livermore national laboratory the development of nuclear weapons isnt going away and theres no way we can control or predict what other countries will do with that technology its kind of like a pandoras box and we need to be aware of it all but that also means we will always need people in this line of work the nuclear industry recognizes the important role academia plays in workforce development which is why y12 and the los alamos national laboratory (lanl) have partnered with professors such as dr pavel tsvetkov associate professor in the department of nuclear engineering and dr sunil chirayath associate professor and director of tees center for nuclear security science and policy initiatives to support and fund specialized focused courses for students the focus of our nuclear criticality safety program is to prepare future generations of nuclear criticality safety experts for the national labs and industry tsvetkov said he is teaching a course about criticality safety fundamentals together with experts from lanl and y12 while chirayath is teaching a course on the use of monte carlo n-particle transport code a computational tool that is widely used in the nuclear community the program is currently in its second year and aims to establish a pipeline of nuclear criticality safety engineers to us national laboratories and industry texas a&m university is one of only a handful of prestigious universities selected to host an nse day event to engage stem students interested in a career with the nse
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circumstance and chance play a huge role in invention and innovation in the case of the texas a&m university team behind lazarus ammunition that penetrates and neutralizes threats without loss of life so much of the products early conceptualization was serendipitous ben omonira a junior chemical engineering student and member of the zachry leadership program met elise hackney mechanical engineering junior outside of an elective engineering course they both arrived to early one day during their freshman year they began discussing omoniras idea for a bullet that could help avoid situations like 2016 ambush and shooting on dallas police officers and the current obstacles they would face hackney enjoyed product design and cad and offered to help create a model fast forward two work-filled years of trial error improvement competitions and the engineering incubator and you have an incredible student-creation that is shooting to the top in its field omonira is not your average student he was born in the uk raised in dallas and he had this quirky commitment to writing down 10 ideas a day in his book of bright ideas not the easiest hobby hell tell you but it seems to have paid off with lazarus
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whenever the shooting happened we were just really shocked that this occurred where we were living said omonira i saw then that there is a problem with lethality in our nation i had just finished watching a ted talk about hydrogels they put in medicines while watching the news coverage of this ambush my brother changed the channel to agents of shield and was pointing out this gun that put people to sleep the idea triangulated then what if there was a way to create biocompatible ammunition that neutralizes the threat but could preserve life and buy time the goal of lazarus ammunition is to neutralize a threat but preserve life the innovation lies in the design and the materials used that stop blood loss hemostatic materials inside capable of clotting the wound cavity
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why should we care lazarus is the opportunity the nation has been demanding for several situations that could have gone more favorably in situations where the guilty party is ambiguous a lazarus bullet could have helped clear that up by providing the opportunity to gain further information from an assailant by using normal ammunition as the neutralizing force the opportunity to gain further information may not be available another situation with regular rounds to consider is the cost from emotional trauma to time and resources after a member of law enforcement uses deadly force if the lazarus bullet were an option right now it would likely be much smaller the market for this innovation is vast beyond the obvious local law enforcement agencies there is even an application for the military and intelligence agencies not only could it be used to help in situations requiring further investigation for information but also for minimizing death on the battle field when someone is injured in battle this creates a liability two fellow soldiers support one injured soldier meaning three soldiers are now incapacitated nonlethally rather than simply killing one soldier
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the journey to a winning invention where lazarus is today wasnt without help and guidance through multiple courses competitions and organizations on campus not to mention the efforts of the team through the engineering entrepreneurship program omonira and hackney took the product lean launch for engineers course where they went through a rough business plan learned competitive advantages and market analysis after that they enrolled in the engineering inc program and began doing customer interviews with local law enforcement participated (and won) in the engineering project showcase and developed and tested prototypes the thing that i love about this team is that they are very passionate about this said jim donnell professor of practice and program coordinator of engineering inc they are willing to be mentored tutored and taught and their success shows it ive pushed back hard on them presented them with many challenges and they never give up they arent afraid to scale the wall of challenges over their journey theyve hit some impressive milestones they won first place at the retailing summit conference in 2018 through the texas a&m mays business school and they presented to gen john murray who was visiting campus with the army futures command in order to produce a functioning prototype for testing they expanded their team to include nathan panak a full-time staff employee in the susu and mark a fischer '72 engineering design center and seth reine junior biomedical engineering student their venture was accepted to the 2019 launchpad lift cohort through the mcferrin center for entrepreneurship and more recently they placed third in the raymond ideas challenge and took fourth place in aggie pitch
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the susu and mark a fischer 72 engineering design center was buzzing with creative energy this past weekend as 60 students participated in aggies invent for assistive technology the 48-hour intensive design competition gives students the opportunity to create a concept design a prototype and pitch their product to a panel of judges students were tasked with developing solutions to problems faced by people with disabilities in the end it was a team of six students who took home first place for their wheelchair design that would allow the user to climb stairs we worked with tees technology accessibility compliance to develop need statements that would benefit so many people who have disabilities said rodney boehm director of the engineering entrepreneurship program these students came prepared to tackle the challenges presented to them and they did so with enthusiasm and creativity
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team hi rollers winning concept used a triple-wheel design that would vault wheelchair wheels up a standard-sized staircase they designed a working small-scale prototype that they demonstrated in their pitch video the team won $1 000 for their design
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its the third time linda bustaman has participated in aggies invent and the second time shes won first place one of the reasons i came back is because no matter how many times youve done it its always going to be different she said boehm said there were many students at this aggies invent who have participated in the past it really showed he said good teams are comprised of students with a variety of skill sets and every team brought something unique to the table hi roller teammate carla bassil ‘22 agreed
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i think the biggest thing about aggies invent is that it really teaches you about delegating she said not everybody has the same skill set while im good at one thing im not good at everything this helps you learn to work with people who have different skills and how to leverage that this was bassils second time participating in aggies invent last time i didnt win anything but it was the most impactful educational experience ive had she said rodney makes things happen he brought us actual wheelchairs and brought someone in who uses a wheelchair that we could talk to teammate jeriel jammullamudy ‘22 an aerospace engineering student participated in invent for the planet in february he said the most important thing he learned this time around is that youre often the strongest when youre going through a difficult time our video wasnt working our presentation wasnt ready on time and everything went wrong he said we got together and we were like ‘well handle these bumps and thats what they did rodney always says ‘if you can dream it we can make it jammullamudy said you literally can build anything here the team would like to pursue a patent for their design and theyre considering moving their concept forward through the engineering incubator at texas a&m
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the second-place team safe walk designed a white cane attachment that would help a person with blindness walk in a straight line and avoid obstacles third-place team stablegrip developed a tremor-reducing product that would allow people with neurodegenerative diseases to complete simple tasks like brushing their teeth or using utensils
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the judges requested that an honorable mention category be added because the competition was so strong a fourth team soundception won this category for their accessible music production technology that would allow a person who is blind to create digital music more easily this aggies invent was made possible by amazon web services and mediasite the brazos valley center for independent living provided wheelchairs to assist students in their design process for more information about aggies invent visit the website
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farid saemi a graduate student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university was named international runner-up in the prestigious 2019 robert l lichten award competition of the vertical flight society (vfs) formerly known as the american helicopter society saemi who received his undergraduate degree in 2017 from the department has worked with assistant professor dr moble benedict in the advanced vertical flight laboratory (avfl) since his sophomore year and has interned at nasa johnson space center in houston texas nasa langley research center in hampton roads virginia and boeing commercial airplanes in seattle washington saemi has been researching the electric powertrains of small unmanned aerial systems (suas) in graduate school and his first publication "semi-empirical modeling of group 1 uas electric powertrains" won the vfs southwest region's best paper award last semester his paper placed second at the international stage ahead of papers from engineers at sikorsky aircraft corporation and nasa ames research center his research is funded by a journeyman fellowship from the army research laboratory and his research has helped the texas a&m team competing in the boeing gofly prize competition their phase i and phase ii winning design relies on an electric powertrain designed by saemi the robert l lichten award was established in 1975 to honor the memory of robert l lichten an outstanding rotary-wing engineer and the societys 22nd president it recognizes new and innovative research in the area of vertical flight and encourages vfs members who have not previously presented to begin making public the results of their work through presentations at the local level each of the vfs regions around the world is eligible to select a regional winner from which an overall international winner and runner-up are selected students from the advanced vertical flight laboratory have placed first or second at the international level since 2015
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q: do you have a favorite memory of engineering or the universitya: i've loved engineering and physics long before i attended texas a&m so it was a good fit for me what i remember most are the crazy long study hours although i did enjoy what i was studying and still do even though my masters program was only a year i was shocked at all the things i learned that i didn't know coming out as an undergraduate it was amazing i enjoyed the cultures and traditions and i fully immersed myself in all of them i believe you get out what you put into it ill never forget being a fish camp counselor or living in puryear hall for three years which didn't have any air conditioning my grandfather was the class of 1919 and my daughter is the class of 2019 his brother was the class of 23 and my dad uncle cousins my sisters my wife my daughters and several of my nieces and nephews have attended texas a&m
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q: how did you end up at nasaa: i was getting my masters in health physics and there was a huge demand for that degree a lot of national labs and clean-up sites were hiring i was interviewing with power plants universities and facilities and was close to deciding where i would go then we had a phd student join our department and he was being funded by nasa i had never thought of working for nasa dr poston had a couple of contacts down at the johnson space center so i started making cold calls people politely told me ‘sorry we don't have anything for you a few times then one call i got lucky i was talking to the (johnson space center) space radiation health officer we ended up talking on the phone for about an hour and he invited me down for a face to face interview they made me an offer (which happened to be the lowest offer i had received) i took it and i've been here ever since i started out with nasa contractors kelsey seybold then rockwell international then lockheed martin and finally switched to the government side with nasa
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q: what motivated you to pursue nasa instead of a higher paying career and what motivates you in generala: i grew up in houston i think part of it was growing up in the 70s so i remembered the moon missions skylab and nasa was a big part of houston i played neil armstrong in my sixth-grade play so for me working at nasa was a dream job when they offered me that position even though it was the lowest offer i'd received from anyone i jumped at it i would say what motivates me is teamwork i love what can be accomplished when a team comes together and works toward a common goal i've been fortunate to be a member of and lead great teams i remember i was leading a hardware development team we were designing and building the extra vehicular charged particle directional spectrometer which is still on the international space station i came to work and my guys were so motivated i hadn't realized that a couple of them had been there for two straight days without going home or sleeping they were trying to make sure we met a deadline i had to put them in my car and drive them to their houses i love that team dedication
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q: why do you support space travela: i'm an engineer i'm an optimist and i love adventure if you were to put all those together and create a job it would probably come back as space exploration i also think our message is good we're inclusive of all across nationalities and countries we're learning for all of mankind and the benefits are for all of mankind space travel also has some intangibles which i believe can lift the human spirit i think it can make people reach for things that maybe they didn't believe they could accomplish if we look back at some of the greatest moments of our country the moon landing is one of them it was very inspirational i think it's hard to measure the impact of that sort of accomplishment
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q: what are some examples of nuclear engineering in the space industrya: we have radioisotope thermoelectric generators to generate electricity using the heat released by decay of pu-238 sr-90 and other suitable isotopes we are also working on different propulsion ideas and looking to nuclear energy to generate heat nuclear energy is our best bet for long-term space probes people living on the moon or mars at this point would likely use small reactors
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q: what advice do you have for nuclear engineering studentsa: don't be afraid to take risks i see people come out of school and they'll get stuck if you will in a certain job or discipline if thats all you want to do thats fine but if you want to move into leadership positions or even a different discipline i would encourage people to take steps and move in those directions you don't know what you're going to think 15 years from now i've watched people who are scared to leave the comfort zone that they've probably known since they were an undergrad i would encourage anyone to move away from their comfort zone that's how you grow and learn and become more of a benefit to the organization as well as a happier version of yourself
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q: do you have any ethical concerns about future space travela: its always possible that corporations could take things in the wrong direction but thats true of a lot of technology hopefully nobody goes in those directions but i think just because a nefarious option is always out there doesn't mean you should halt innovation and stop pursuing the technology altogether i guess i just don't look at it that way at nasa we interact with people from many different countries and they're all great people one of the best parts that i've had working on the international space station program is being able to travel to europe japan and russia to work with those scientists the people are all amazing we're much more similar than we are different
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for 48 hours college students from over 26 universities around the world joined texas a&m university virtually to tackle some of the most challenging issues facing the planet today the top five teams from the first round of invent for the planet have been selected by a team of external judges and will compete at texas a&m on april 23 and 24
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sips a team from james madison university in virginia developed a solution for hail damage to airplane wings the team drew inspiration from puffer fish a species that can inflate itself into the shape of a ball very quickly in order to evade predators using compressible foam like that found in a camping mattress the students designed a prototype that would quickly inflate to protect the most vulnerable parts of an airplane wing sips was able to present their design to airbus and receive industry feedback the sips team includes charles seaver dean woodwell and mark livingston
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q: what has been the most memorable experiencea: the most memorable experience was watching the live stream of all the universities working simultaneously on important issues it influenced me to work hard during the event - charles seaver
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q: did anything surprise you or come out of the experience that was unexpecteda: my most surprising experience was making our final prototype on the last day and realizing our idea actually worked and worked well the most exciting part for me though was learning on monday that we had placed in the top 5 and will get to go to texas i knew we had a strong idea but i never thought we would make it to texas i am amazed and excited - dean woodwell
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q: why did you pick your need statementa: it was a subject i thought was intriguing and could allow for physical prototyping to be done once i saw others were interested i knew it was the one to pursue - mark livingston
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their next plan of action is to listen to feedback after the competition to further evaluate their idea pursue product testing and research ways to seal the package and maintain the vacuum
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when i was first thinking of going to college i had already made up my mind that i was going to texas a&m university said cathy sliva 80 i loved the spirit and the camaraderie and even though it was a big university it didnt feel big sliva an associate professor of engineering practice in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m not only loves the aggie spirit she lives it she teaches advises and contributes in many ways to help students currently pursuing a petroleum engineering degree developing that engineering passion my father asked me what i was going to study and i said ‘well i dont know my favorite things are math and physics said sliva and he said ‘maybe you should consider engineering which is the application of math and physics in solving problems my father was an engineer and luckily he gave me that guidance sliva was unsure what facet of engineering to pursue and there was no introduction to a major program in the college of engineering to help her at that time her brother suggested petroleum engineering the same degree he was pursuing since the department was small and she could easily make friends basic classes she took during her first two semesters could transfer to other engineering studies should she wish to switch majors that very first summer in my freshman year i got an internship working in the oil field had a blast and fell in love with petroleum engineering said sliva after graduation she became a registered professional engineer and had a successful career for 33 years in the petroleum industry initially sliva worked for four companies in the positions of senior petroleum engineer director and senior or executive vice president in 2002 she founded her own company bluerock energy capital which won an aggie 100 award she worked as chief executive officer and president there until her retirement in 2013 i cant say anything about success without going back to my family said sliva my husband and three kids are all petroleum engineers it sounds nerdy but we all love talking about it a parent doesnt usually have the kind of relationship that glenn and i have with our kids they call for advice and it feels so good to be able to share my professional experience with them
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heeding the call to serve in 2012 the university contacted sliva about becoming a professor of practice she has served the petroleum engineering department in that role since 2013 engineering students often gain insight from instructors like sliva on how what they are learning will be applied in real-world situations which is why the program is so popular in fall 2018 the petroleum department offered her the job of director for the undergraduate program while she counseled students informally when asked for advice as a professor this advisor position took her to a new level of service sliva a certified steven minister trained to provide care and advice now uses those skills and others to help petroleum engineering students prepare for the ups and downs of academic life and the futures that await them after they graduate its not all fun and games but im where i need to be for both the students and me said sliva ive always enjoyed working with young people i think ive made a difference in many students lives just in the short time ive been here that makes me happy
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in addition to teaching and academic advising within the department she also directs the petroleum ventures program which is something she lists as one of her greatest accomplishments the program funded by former students jay graham and anthony bahr is a collaboration between the petroleum engineering department and the finance department at mays business school it is tailored for undergraduate petroleum engineering and finance students who desire to work in energy finance or petroleum investment management have the goal to attain senior management at an oil and gas company or create and manage their own energy company we are developing engineers with skills i needed when i started my own company skills that i needed even before that but had to learn on my own said sliva these kids are interested in becoming leaders in our industry whether its a leader within a company or the leader of their own company it doesnt matter sliva stated that students in the program expand their opportunities for employment because their knowledge base is different than an engineer without a business and finance background graduates with a petroleum ventures certificate are gaining a reputation within the industry other universities are taking notice and calling sliva for information on how to set up a program of their own working with students continuously reminds sliva what it was like to start on a path in engineering at texas a&m this is why she and her husband glenn 81 who is also an associate professor of engineering practice in the department set up a scholarship to aid students with the cost of an education as an engineer you fall in love with solving problems and usually thats using math and science said sliva as a teacher and an advisor youre solving problems for human beings im still solving problems the problems are just different and im using different skills every day is a fun day because of that
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on april 4 eight faculty members from texas a&m university gave presentations about their research during the inaugural presidents excellence fund symposium at the walter and leonore annenberg presidential conference center each speaker is a leader or a member of an interdisciplinary research team that earned project funding from the first round of texas a&ms x-grants program an initiative of the 10-year $100 million presidents excellence fund three researchers represented the texas a&m college of engineering for his project point-of-care diagnosis and monitoring of respiratory disease through exhaled breath analysis dr ricardo gutierrez-osuna a professor in the department of computer science and engineering and his research team are developing a new technology to help individuals who suffer from respiratory diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma to monitor their conditions through exhaled breath analyses called breath-on-a-chip spectrometers (bocs) unlike current devices that cost up to $3 000 the bocs will be a fraction of the cost of existing sensor-based monitors easy to operate and able to monitor multiple biomarkers with the planning grant they received for their project autonomous material discovery and manufacturing via artificial intelligence dr satish bukkapatnam professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations (tees) institute for manufacturing systems and his team are investigating the creation of new materials using artificial intelligence to build an autonomous materials discovery framework autonomous materials scientist (ams) that will be able to explore complex materials spaces as part of the grant the ams will drive the discovery of a new class of functional alloy materials the overall goal of the project is to have the ams serve as a platform facility to speed up the process materials and manufacturing process discovery for various applications dr john tracy professor in the zachry department of civil engineering and director of the texas water resources institute is part of a team led by dr wendy jepson professor in the department of geography that is working on a three-year project to examine desalination and water reuse in urban areas jepson was not able to attend symposium due to another engagement but tracy presented a video that she put together that explained how the team will examine the various pathways cities are taking to transform their urban water systems all the researchers and their respective teams shared $7 million in funding during the first round of texas a&ms x-grants program they represent 81 faculty members and other researchers from eight colleges four schools and two state agencies agriculture and life sciences architecture education and human development engineering geosciences liberal arts medicine and science mays business school the school of law the school of public health and the bush school of government and public service as well as tees and texas a&m agrilife research
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during a meeting on march 30 dr jeff spath department head of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university signed a memorandum of understanding with the research institute of shannxi yanchang petroleum group this memorandum will pave the way for joint activities between the department and the institute by allowing: joint educational and research activities exchanges of technical materials and scientific data technical information and publications (where legally and practically possible) short-term exchanges of staff members for research lectures and discussions the meeting took place in xian china where yanchang invited spath and texas a&m to be a partner in researching one of the most challenging gas field development environments in the world after signing the agreement spath shook hands with dr ruimin gao president of the research institute and expressed his thanks and appreciation to the team at yanchang for hosting texas a&m and for making the research collaboration a reality we are currently looking into possible joint research projects involving tight gas and oil as well as unconventional oil and gas said spath were confident that working together we can improve the recovery and increase efficiencies in yanchangs fields which have some of the most difficult challenges in the petroleum industry shannxi yanchang petroleum group is the fourth-largest state-owned oil and gas enterprise in china and ranked 288 in fortune global 500 in 2018 headquartered in xian its major business units include upstream exploration and production refinery and processing pipeline petrochemical retail gas stations and coal chemicals it employs 120 000 people established in 1905 yanchang drilled the first onshore oil well of china in 1907 last year it reached a yearly oil and gas production of 12 million metric tons and 34 billion cubic meters respectively yanchang has carried out a large number of theoretical and technological innovations in the development of tight gas fields with complex reservoir structures under lacustrine sedimentary environments it has also obtained creative theory and industry-leading technologies in well pattern development and reservoir stimulation which can be a reference for other lacustrine tight gas fields development around the world
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more than 1 400 of the brightest students in texas travelled to college station to compete for prizes at the texas science and engineering fair (txsef) on march 29-30 co-sponsored by the texas workforce commission (twc) and exxonmobil the fair is one of the largest and most prestigious competitions that brings together top science and engineering fair winners from across the state the event was hosted by texas a&m university at the ford hall of champions and the all-american club in kyle field the occasion began with a night at the zach hosted by the college of engineering on friday and culminated with an awards presentation on saturday at the gilliam indoor track stadium texas a&m is the third to host the competition in its 18-year history this event is a tremendous celebration of innovation and we are proud to welcome these bright young students to texas a&m university to showcase their creativity said dr m katherine banks texas a&m engineering vice chancellor and dean participation at the state-level competition is a significant accomplishment and speaks volumes about the support these students have received from their teachers schools families and volunteer mentors along with our partners the texas workforce commission and exxonmobil we are excited to encourage the states future scientists and engineers in the senior division ashna and ashay shah from plano east senior high school in plano received the grand prize for physical sciences and jack delli-santi from lake travis high school in austin received the grand prize for life sciences in the junior division otto beall from otto middle school in plano received the grand prize in physical sciences and ganesh venu from friendswood junior high school in friendswood received the grand prize for life sciences the 2019 texas science and engineering fair once again showcased the wonderful creativity and invention of our students said twc chair ruth r hughs the critical stem skills the participants are developing will help build the future of texas economic development i applaud the innovation dedication and hard work displayed by all of the participants and congratulate the division winners students competed in two divisions junior (grades six through eight) and senior (grades nine through twelve) in one of 22 categories nine seniors were awarded best of fair honors and will advance to the intel international science and engineering fair this may in phoenix arizona in addition to the grand prize and best of fair winners awards were presented to first- through third-place honorees in each category first- and second-place winners from the fairs senior division were also awarded a scholarship to attend the texas governors science and technology champions academy a week-long residential summer camp also sponsored by twc which will be held this summer at southern methodist university for a full list of all txsef winners by category visit the txsef website visit our gallery to view photos from the fair
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dr andreas polycarpou department head in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university is the latest recipient of the prestigious edwin f church medal awarded by the american society of mechanical engineers polycarpou also serves as meinhard h kotzebue '14 professor and james j cain chair in mechanical engineering he was selected for his contributions in reforming mechanical engineering curricula to reflect changing industry demands and technological advances with an emphasis on experiential learning for large cohorts
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dr polycarpou continues to lead the curriculum innovation and development in mechanical engineering " said dr nk anand executive associate dean of engineering and james m and ada sutton forsyth professor in the mechanical engineering department "his leadership has placed texas a&m mechanical engineering as the vanguard in curriculum innovation established in 1972 the award honors individuals who have rendered eminent service in increasing the value importance and attractiveness of mechanical engineering education only one honoree is selected each year for their efforts that go above and beyond their regular duties
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two teams of from the texas a&m university college of engineering placed in the top three of the 2019 raymond ideas challenge a competition that encourages undergraduate and graduate students to dream up the next great product or service and enter their big idea in this campus-wide competition offered through the mcferrin center for entrepreneurship in the mays business school the program offers a number of unique features and benefits including: real-world experience: students receive valuable experience developing business concepts writing skills and presentation abilities networking opportunities: students have the opportunity to network with the judges and gain invaluable contacts
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tokunbo tj falohun biomedical engineering graduation student took second place with his pitch for biocompass an idea focused on a user-friendly approach to diabetes management using biosensors and connected electronics the idea was inspired by the work done in the biosensing systems and materials lab where we develop implantable hydrogel biosensors for chronic disease management falohun said the idea was also shaped by my experience in the nsf (national science foundation) i-corps site fellows program which i participated in last semester falohun said entrepreneurship excites him and saw the challenge as a perfect chance to test his ability to present an idea rooted in biomedical engineering to an external audience in my view the prospect of turning an idea that previously didnt exist into a product or service that can improve the lives of people is a challenge worth undertaking falohun said falohun said his experience in the challenge would not have been possible without the supportive environment provided by his supervisor dr mike mcshane his research group and the department of biomedical engineering he said the challenge reminded him of the importance of extending past the boundaries of his field by doing so we learn more about our ourselves our interests strengths and weaknesses falohun said stepping out of our comfort zone is also a catalyst to new ideas and a means to form new relationships
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third place went to biocompatible projectile a mixed team of engineering students that aimed to bridge the gap between lethal and nonlethal weapons by providing neutralization power of a lethal round while preserving life through hemostatic or blood clotting material its been an amazing experience working with other engineering majors said elise hackney mechanical engineering junior one branch of engineering isnt enough when working to find a solution to a major problem you need people who are versed in a variety of subject areas which often brings different perspectives and approaches that lead groups toward a more effective solution other members of biocompatible projectile were ben omonira chemical engineering junior and seth reine biomedical engineering junior omonira said the challenge provided the team with insight and allowed them to grow their network of technical and business expertise members of the business and academic worlds judged each submission and the top 40 were named finalists finalists presented their concept to judges from the business community who challenged them with questions i was blown away by the judges intentional feedback omonira said the single factor that made this experience meaningful was the fact that the judges wanted to become mentors and maintain a relationship that goes beyond the raymond ideas challenge for omonira he anticipated a high-caliber group of innovative students would participate and the tough competition would make the reward much more meaningful i want students to know that an idea is worth fighting for here at texas a&m and through the raymond ideas challenge experience we had key moments to recognize a need to pivot or persist and forge a better vision omonira said
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for 48 hours college students from over 26 universities around the world joined texas a&m university virtually to tackle some of the most challenging issues facing the planet today the top five teams from the first round of invent for the planet have been selected by a team of external judges and will compete at texas a&m on april 23 and 24
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haildom a team from aristotle university of thessaloniki in greece designed a two-part system to protect airplane wings from hail damage their design uses a c-shaped motorized vehicle with integrated electric motors on each wheel the vehicle would move over a wing and secure a blanket made of nylon with flexible polymer tubes inside to decrease the impact of hail on the wing their design would cover airplane wings much faster than the current industry standard and would use fewer operators thus reducing the risk of injury to people tasked with covering the wings team member georgiadou aikaterini a mechanical engineering construction and material science student shares his insight on the competition
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q: what has been the most memorable experience a: my most memorable experience was establishing our team name that happened after we proposed our first solutions so the name helped the team bond and triggered our excitement for the project
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q: did anything surprise you or come out of the experience that was unexpected a: i was surprised with our first win in greece i personally knew that my team tried really hard but so did the other teams when i realized they believed in us and found us innovative that really pumped my heart with joy
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additional team members include apostolidis george koualiarella alnto and theodoridou theodora the team said they will never forget the intensity and dedication the 48-hour challenge required and the power of cooperation a shared interest in aircraft and technical work drew them together to tackle the challenge their next plan of action is to test the impact of hail on the material and create a working model of the c-shaped vehicle then solve every small technical issue that arises until the design is perfect
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despite advances in early detection and treatment 25 percent of the deaths in the united states occur as a result of cancer antibody-drug conjugates or adcs represent a promising treatment for cancer an adc is as its name suggests an antibody linked to a potent drug that can kill cells the antibody is designed to bind to receptors on the outside of target cells and then carries the attached drug into the cell adcs usually work well when the antibody attaches to receptors that are especially common on tumor cells that way the drug will primarily enter the cancerous cells leaving the healthy cells alone however despite improvements in adc technology over the past 15 years or so many adcs have faced problems with toxicity towards normal tissue during their use in clinical trials this prompted texas a&m college of medicine and college of engineering researchers to collaborate to engineer an adc that will be more effective against tumor cells while not being as toxic to healthy cells their work which has been funded by the cancer prevention and research institute of texas(cprit) and the national institutes of health was published in the journal nature biotechnology there is such a thing as a therapeutic window said dr e sally ward research professor at the college of medicine and joint corresponding author of the paper with dr raimund ober this is the difference between the amount of drug that is needed to kill the tumor cells and the amount that results in off-target toxicity towards normal cells for effective adcs we want this window to be as large as possible to accomplish that ward and her team created an adc that is sensitive to ph levels so that it separates from its target receptor after it enters the cell this allows for the reloading of the receptor with additional adc and more effective delivery of the drug to target cells
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dr yang shen assistant professor and mostafa karimi his phd student in the electrical and computer engineering department and corresponding authors are developing computational methods for modeling biological molecules networks and data in response to the challenges in modeling ph-dependent protein interactions they expanded a multi-state protein design algorithm to model adc-engineering effects the computational study reported in the paper reflecting the first stage of our collaboration was mainly on reverse engineering ph-selective adcs in other words generating mechanistic hypotheses and designing experiments to test the hypotheses shen said what we have been working on since then is to translate the learned molecular mechanisms into rational design principles and forward engineer even more powerful adcs this truly was an interdisciplinary project ward said it has involved (bio)engineers and biologists using a combination of antibody engineering microscopy molecular modeling and studies in preclinical cancer models in our collaboration experiments and models have been feeding each other iteratively while making scientific discoveries shen said i am truly blessed and deeply thankful for the impactful interdisciplinary collaboration with drs ward and ober the researchers have tested their adc on both cell lines and in preclinical models in our models there was three-fold more drug delivery than with the parent adc that had not been engineered ward said that means that we could use lower doses and still obtain therapeutic effects which is expected to result in reductions in the toxicity towards normal cells the adc used in this study targets the receptor her2 commonly present in breast cancers importantly this approach to generate adcs is a platform technology that is expected to work for many different types of tumors and tumor markers from prostate cancer to cancers of the blood we hope this will be able to move into clinical trials and eventually help people with many different types of cancer ward said the other authors of the study are jeffrey c kang who at the time of the research was a phd student department of molecular and cellular medicine; wei sun phd postdoctoral research associate department of molecular and cellular medicine; priyanka khare phd postdoctoral research associate department of molecular and cellular medicine; and xiaoli wang phd postdoctoral research associate department of molecular and cellular medicine
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in honor of international womens day the panamanian association for the advancement of science recognized eight women with an inaugural award celebrating their valuable contributions to science technology and engineering in panama among them were dr yessica sáez 15 and dr guadalupe gonzález 10 two former students from the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university since its foundation in 1985 the panamanian association for the advancement of science has strived to promote science and technology as the foundation of national development it actively participates in projects and research that shape policies and development strategies in panama i consider celebrating women important for many reasons said sáez a researcher at the technological university of panama as a woman and an engineer i believe that this kind of award not only promotes fantastic young female engineers and their achievements but also vitally raises awareness of the shortage of female engineers in the world enhancing mobility the leader of her telecommunications engineering research team sáez is investigating how intelligent systems can be applied to society among her various projects funded by the panamanian government is the development of a radio frequency-based assistive program for visually impaired people called movidis (mobility for visually disabled people) proposing a means of providing autonomous mobility in public transport and indoor environments movidis uses radio frequency communication and embedded systems to help the visually impaired navigate their day-to-day lives in addition to being easy to use the prototyped movidis is inexpensive modular and does not use audio cues which keeps it from being burdensome or distracting to those who need it most with the implementation of the proposed system the lives of visually impaired people in panama will change it gives them the opportunity to reach their destination and to contribute positively to our society by overcoming the obstacles related to their ability to move freely and without the help of a tutor said sáez expanding collaboration gonzález an associate professor at the technological university of panama has directed the smarts-e research group for nearly eight years smarts-e provides a successful example to panama as to how innovation can be enhanced through collaboration since 2013 gonzález has collaborated with health science experts in the prestigious institute for scientific research and high technology services (indicasat-aip) in panama to investigate how to eradicate malaria these collaborations have allowed us to create an interdisciplinary group with students and young professionals from both electromechanical engineering and biology in a country where this type of multidisciplinary collaboration is new said gonzález and thats critical bringing together experts from various backgrounds to solve societal problems offers a diverse set of skills perspectives and knowledge in turn this allows researchers to not only gain a better understanding of an issue but also helps to shape practical solutions and experiments relying on one anothers expertise and strengths the researchers from smarts-e and indicasat-aip have been studying the behavior of malaria and how it reacts to being exposed to various physical excitations in doing so they are not only cataloguing the unique characteristics of the disease but also exploring how to engineer a means of exterminating it once and for all looking forward by looking back as shining examples of aggie engineers sáez and gonzález are impacting society and the world at large with their research and leadership through their dedication and paramount work they are forging forward into the future bolstered by their time education and experience at texas a&m i want to thank dr mark ehsani my advisor at texas a&m for teaching me how to develop and manage research projects like he does said gonzález i am conducting my research group to the best of my ability the same way that he manages his research team because i truly believe it works i would tell the female student body in the department of electrical and computer engineering to not give up and to trust in themselves and their capabilities always bearing in mind that engineering is capable of transforming the world said sáez
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dr daniele mortari professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the 2017 mathematics best paper second award from mathematics an international open-access journal that provides an advanced forum for studies related to mathematical sciences the paper titled least-squares solution of linear differential equations presents a new approach to provide least-squares solutions of linear nonhomogeneous differential equations of any order with nonconstant coefficients both continuous and nonsinglular in the integration range six research articles were selected by the journal award committee based on their originality and significance as well as citation and download rates in 2018 the award recipients will receive a certificate and an invitation to publish a paper free of charge in mathematics each paper will additionally receive a bonus based on the award class mortari's paper can be read here
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from the introduction of new perspectives to groundbreaking innovations diversity is changing the face of engineering this year the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university celebrated womens history month by showcasing students staff and faculty and sharing their thoughts about embracing differences and offering advice to fellow women in stem heres what they had to say:
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"your uniqueness your diversity and the adversity you go through are essential to progress these are not things that make you 'other ' but make you necessary" phd student shawanee patrick
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just because a subject is hard for you and seems easy for everyone else doesnt mean it isnt for you the hard stuff is often the most interesting and rewarding its hard work not talent that creates success dr astrid layton assistant professor
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"college is such a unique time of endless possibilities and opportunities take the time to get involved learn from those around you and challenge yourself its also just as important to seek help when you need it while sometimes it seems never-ending four years will fly by in the blink of an eye" jen bloom academic advisor iii
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dont let stereotypes stop you from setting your own life goals if someone else chooses a certain path you arent obligated to follow them allow yourself to be bold ava robicheaux administrative assistant iv
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"as engineers we are constantly working to improve the world around us and in order to do so we must effect change we often focus on change in the form of discovery and technology development the journey along this path is accelerated with the inclusion of diverse ideas therefore we must continue to embrace change within the engineering workforce we have the opportunity today to encourage young women to pursue careers in engineering where they can have a direct impact on the lives of people around the world" dr lesley wright associate professor and jana and quentin a baker '78 faculty fellow
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"we are fortunate to have among us experienced and wise human beings it is our privilege and duty to acknowledge them accept their teachings and build upon their achievements" phd student namita anil kumar
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the association of asphalt paving technologists (aapt) elected dr amy epps martin a professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university to the board of directors as a director-at-large she has been a part of the organization for her entire 21-year career i am honored to be elected by my peers as director-at-large said epps martin aapt is by far the most rewarding and relevant professional group that i am associated with she has previously been co-chair of aapts newer member committee and a member of the scholarship task force the nominating committee for officers and directors and the jw emmons award committee she received runner-up for the emmons paper award in 2016 and aapts award of recognition in 2012 epps martin conducts research on safe sustainable asphalt technologies through the texas a&m transportation institute she recently completed a national research project on increasing the amount of reclaimed asphalt pavement in asphalt pavements to provide economic and environmental benefits while maintaining good engineering performance
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cancer research much like the disease itself starts with living cells while we know that the chemical makeup of cancerous cells can differ in the past decade variations in their mechanical properties have stolen the spotlight however collecting information about the mechanical properties of cancer cells has proven to be a challenge for researchers due to the complex design and operation of current cellular measurement technology especially when such measurements have to be done one tiny cell at a time in order to simplify and cut the cost of such devices a team of researchers at texas a&m university has created an acoustofluidic cytometer that uses sound waves to measure the stiffness and compressibility of cancer cells this not only will aid in the classification of cancer types but will also make diagnosis more efficient and observable the team is led by dr arum han professor and presidential impact fellow in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m and dr han wang professor at tsinghua university their recent publication in the journal lab on a chip was featured in an article on physicsworld so why is it important to understand the biophysical properties of cancer cells characteristics that set these cells apart from their healthy counterparts offer insight into the disease that is invaluable to the future of cancer research for example if you're trying to figure out if a biopsy contains cancer cells or not you might be able to look at the mechanical properties of the cells to determine if cancer is present in the sample said han
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he went on to explain another scenario: how the biophysical properties of cancerous cells change as they advance through stages and metastasize one hypothesis is that as cancer cells progress they become softer which makes it easier for them to circulate and spread inside a human body said han so if a late stage cancer has an identifiably different biophysical property than earlier stages it could be possible to tell what stage a cancer is in by simply measuring the mechanical property of cell types this could be used to quantify the stages of cancer while many microfluid devices use pushing mechanisms and microstructures to measure the compressibility and stiffness of cancer cells hans acoustofluidic cytometer utilizes soundwaves acoustic waves traveling in a rectangular microfluidic channel form a standing wave which creates zones called acoustic pressure nodes cells flowing inside the channel will move toward and gather near these pressure nodes the speed at which the cells move varies depending on how soft or firm they are revealing their compressibility and stiffness without the need for any complex mechanisms by observing how cancer cells react under the influence of acoustic soundwaves researchers can gain insight about the cells mechanical properties which can then be correlated to different stages of cancer the simplicity of our device and its operation is what makes this particular work very exciting compared to previous methods of measurement which require very expensive equipment or very complicated microstructures to work said han
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ryan burns an information technology (it) manager at texas a&m university leads a support team of 60 student workers and six full-time professionals dedicated to supporting technology at the zachry engineering education complex (zach) here he shares ten ways tech at the zach is evolving to increase collaboration and innovation for students faculty and staff
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large buildings can kill cell reception so small cone-shaped cell-signal amplifiers are being installed throughout the building burns and his team are currently working with each provider to make sure digital natives can stay in touch through their devices
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open office plans can increase collaboration but they can also increase noise offices in the zach have little boxes that create a seamless white noise similar to a gentle fan blowing that reduces noise overflow facilities professionals access and adjust the boxes remotely throughout the day to ensure theyre helpful and unobtrusive
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the beaconing system is connected to the wireless network to support wayfinding in the building and may one day help guide drone tours for visitors there are over 600 beacons in the zach
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autonomous occupancy sensors control the lights air conditioning and even outlets even though the zachry building is the size of two boeing 747s end to end the sensors help save on energy and reduce the overall carbon footprint
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thirteen new kiosks in the hallways are helping students and visitors navigate the building the kiosks help users find an event or a specific advisor by providing a list of directions and a digital walkthrough illustrating how to get there if you get lost along the way just check another kiosk or try the buildings app enginearme! additional kiosks in the interdisciplinary common labs use keyware software to check out equipment efficiently
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each classroom has their own independent network and audio-visual closet to power the extensive collaborative environment it also means that if the building network goes down class will still continue as planned
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digital signage broadcasts engineering news on screens throughout the building allowing students to have a more interactive media experience and increase involvement the learning studios have technology worktables with wireless connectivity and multidevice sharing screens digital screens can come out of the worktable and can go down allowing the student to customize their learning experience the college is using t1vs thinkhub connect solution using wall-mounted large-format touch screens thinkhub allows the instructor to operate on an effective work space that is 20 times the size of the actual screen content can be created and moved off screen to be brought back later in the class as needed eliminating the need to constantly erase material to free up space on the live display the system allows content to be added from multiple sources like laptops document cameras web-based video sources and content from the student worktable displays wireless connections keep it informed of each tables technology status reducing possible downtime
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in huddle rooms students use wepresent to share their screens with the rest of the group they can also split the screen in four ways making it easier to collaborate advanced video conferencing equipment with microphones hanging from the ceiling mean students can practice their skype interview skills outside each room is a tablet that shows the rooms reservations which students can reserve through the enginearme app
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the digital alcove inspires wonder about engineering to visitors it features an interactive large table touch screen that displays information about the art collection former students engineering majors and building donors
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texas a&m engineering students carry on average three devices each 4 000 devices are connected to the zachry building during peak usage thats why the zach has so many chargers throughout the building including outlets on the furniture and stairs theres even phone charging boxes in the rooftop garden if you come here at 10 pm said burns theres tons of students studying between work and school and studying students need a place to recharge their devices and themselves
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beam smoke detectors that utilize light obstruction technology to detect smoke are located in multiple places over the zach learning stairs to provide a layered grid of smoke detection one of these is the fireray® 5000 a motorized reflective auto-aligning infrared optical beam smoke detector the second is the open-area smoke imaging detection which uses a complementary metal oxide semiconductor sensor with wired or battery-powered emitter(s) aligned on the opposite wall within the protected area that sends both infrared and ultraviolet coded light signals to the imager all of these devices are monitored and controlled by the siemens firefinder xls systems fire alarm panel when a fire is detected anywhere in the building the panel is instantly alerted in less time than it takes to draw a single breath alarms are activated and emergency control operations are engaged including fire door closure elevator capture and air handler shut-off
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the zach tech team is currently working on further developing the mobile app and supporting augmented reality research for faculty developing tech at the zach is a blast said burns the students are very curious they investigate everything we see them following the wires and a lot come by the service desk and ask us how the classroom works the student response has been exceptional
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the zachry building is the largest academic building on campus and is accessible 24 hours a day seven days a week to engineering students interested in learning more about the zach or taking a tour check out the zachry website the zachry technology service desk is located at zach 383 and is open monday-friday 8 am to 8 pm
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dr ranjana mehta associate professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university has been selected as the 2019 creativeness in ergonomics practitioner of the year by the institute of industrial and systems engineers the award is presented to researchers who have shown achievements in the creative application of ergonomics for a specific project or series of projects in her research mehta studies neuroergonomics which focuses on how the brain and body interact during work the award recognizes her creative approach on employing neuroergonomic tools to help understand assess and improve worker performance health and safety as an academic you always wonder if your research is translational and if it is really impacting worker well-being and safety mehta said receiving this award makes me feel great because our industry is telling me that not only is my work translational but also creative i am honored to receive this valuable feedback as it encourages me to push the boundaries of traditional research the field of neuroergonomics is growing and research like mehtas helps increase understanding and fill in the gaps in the field by understanding and assessing how the mind and brain influences human behavior ‘in the wild using neuroergonomics researchers and practitioners can develop intelligent systems to help people interact safely and successfully with their environments ranging from predictable modern office to unstructured disaster environments mehta said the award was presented at the 22nd annual applied ergonomics conference which took place in new orleans this march
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inspired by her love to make new experiences and the desire to challenge herself in ways beyond the norm freshman engineering student jainita chauhan and her team competed in the global grand challenges summit competition in california in april
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the top five teams from this competition in which students are asked to create business plans and models that tackle grand challenges of the 21st century gained the opportunity to represent the united states at the international competition held in london although chauhans team did not move on to this next competition the experience itself was enough for the team this entire project was so unexpected for me said chauhan i wasnt even planning on joining the team because i was scared of the fact that i was a freshman and everyone else on the team would be much more competent than myself fears aside chauhan was chosen as team lead though she regards junior civil engineering student justin nguyen as her co-lead as a female and one of the youngest members chauhan said that there were many opportunities to break down stereotypes when i've told someone about this project and my role on the team i cant say how many times i have gotten raised eyebrows or doubt in my capabilities said chauhan it was in these stereotypes that chauhan found her purpose: to represent texas a&m engineering in the best way she could by never giving anything less than her best however like anyone chauhan said that it took immense support from her friends and family to not give up in my horrible habit of stressing over everything sometimes it took them trusting in my work ethic and capabilities to keep me going said chauhan in her time there and with her teammates she was able to visit the national academy of engineering and receive valuable in-depth training in business and engineering entrepreneurship her teams project the disaster city digital twin system was an aggie_challenge research project focused on the restoration and improvement of urban infrastructure inspired by flooding disasters in areas like houston chauhan said that her teams nonprofit business model gathers crowdsourced data and processes it through artificial intelligence software where it is then taken to a web-based application map where humanitarian agencies can view data in near real time solving a communication and coordination problem though my team didn't advance to the global summit in london i was extremely proud of the accomplishments we achieved this semester and i know that the digital twin system is many steps closer to commercialization than it was in january said chauhan overall chauhan said that this experience proved invaluable to her in more ways than she could count this project was definitely a highlight of my semester and my freshman year she said i enjoyed it much more than i was expecting to and i learned a lot in the future she hopes that more students join the team and take their successes even further specifically freshman and sophomore students these competitions are possible for anyone and you shouldn't be scared to participate or underestimate your capabilities well-rounded teams arent composed of the same types of individuals for a team to be strong it needs that ambitious freshman or sophomore who isn't scared to step out of their comfort zone to try something new said chauhan aggie_challenge is designed to engage engineering undergraduate students with multidisciplinary team research projects related to engineering challenges facing our society the grand challenges include the 14 grand challenges for engineering (national academy of engineering) the 14 grand challenges for global health (bill and melinda gates foundation) and engineering world health: projects that matter
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the texas a&m university college of engineering is proud to celebrate with jim carman 00 (bachelors and masters in civil engineering) as he accepts a promotion to senior vice president of commercial development with the howard hughes corporation in the woodlands carman has worked with howard hughes since 2012 and has led the team developing the award-winning hughes landing a mixed-use urban center on lake woodlands the office of alumni relations spoke with carman to discuss his career and accomplishments
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q: why did you choose civil engineering and why did you choose to pursue a masters degree a: i took a drafting class in my freshman year of high school and fell in love with the art of engineering drawings i ended up taking four years of drafting and working with a local civil engineering firm as a draftsman i knew i wanted to be somewhere in the process of creating buildings and civil engineering seemed like a great option to provide maximum flexibility on a future careerin order to complete my undergraduate degree i received a scholarship that required that i take a minimum of 18 credit hours per semester by the time i finished i had accumulated quite a few more credit hours than was required i was told i could apply some classes toward my masters degree and get it completed in one year admittedly i wasnt ready to enter the real world yet so it turned out to be a great opportunity q: what is the best part of your job a: to bring a project to life in our industry from concept to reality it takes hundreds of professionals giving their blood sweat and tears (ive been there) to make it happen to be able to lead these teams and to see the impact the projects have on the end users is something that is tremendously rewarding the true value of a project is not in the brick and mortar it takes to build it but how it brings people together and impacts their lives for the better my role allows me to be a part of that and to see the end result q: what will being a senior vice president of commercial development look like a: our team is amazing and we have such a unique responsibility and opportunity to create the places where people live work and play my role is to assist the team with strategic direction and to give them the tools they need to succeed q: you are on the executive committee for the leukemia and lymphoma society why did you get involved with this charity and how does it relate to your field a: i believe as leaders we have an incredible opportunity and expectation to be involved in charitable and community activities outside of the workplace and to engage our team members in giving back there are a lot of great organizations to be involved in but the leukemia and lymphoma society is one that really inspired me when i saw the amount of people impacted by blood cancers including several of our team members i was honored to be the co-chair with my colleague heath melton last year for the montgomery county light the night here in the woodlands the event brought in over 5 000 people and set a record with $13 million raised to fight cancer through the help of our partners and team members i was able to finish sixth in the nation out of nearly 2 000 executives taking part in the executive challenge q: do you have any advice for graduating engineers or undergraduate students in general a: you will have to take some risks in life and in your career and the best time to do it is in your 20s take calculated risks and trust your gut at work i always wanted to fill every vacuum i could see if something wasnt getting done or someone needed a volunteer i wanted everyone to always look to me i cant ever recall saying that isnt my job or i dont have time for that i still feel that way today nothing is too insignificant to be involved in and if someone asks me for help you can bet i will be there also i will say that a huge part of my success has been having a supportive spouse i met my beautiful wife leigh ann at the rec center at texas a&m my senior year and through the long hours changing jobs and moving to different states and countries having someone to share my daily stories and challenges with has been invaluable to me q: what else are you up to these days we have a 5-year-old daughter grace who is amazing and bleeds maroon our family loves to travel and to enjoy our getaway place located in leon county its a rural property that allows me to disconnect for a short time and recharge as well as teach my daughter about nature and self-sufficiency we also make time to indoctrinate her with all things aggie
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the texas a&m college of engineering is proud of our former students like jim carman who display aggie core values such as loyalty selfless service and leadership if you know an aggie who is celebrating an accomplishment and would like them to be recognized by the college please contact the office of alumni relations
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donation will fund tees hewlett packard enterprise center for computer architecture research the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) a member of the texas a&m university system announced the creation of the new hewlett packard enterprise center for computer architecture research made possible with a donation from hewlett packard enterprise r stanley williams former hpe senior fellow and nanotechnology pioneer will lead the tees hpe center as well as serve as the hewlett packard enterprise chair professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university the ongoing rise of big data and the development of powerful analytical techniques that can efficiently evaluate the data will dramatically transform the way we live and work unlocking the value of this data will require computer architectures that are flexible and not bound by traditional designs the centers mission is to lead the way into this new world of data-driven computing architectures through academic-industry collaboration hpe donated research equipment valued at $105 million hpe also funded a $1 million endowed chair position that texas a&m will match with a $500 000 contribution these gifts will establish a leading-edge research capability and partnership with tees dedicated to the study of advanced materials and photonics for innovative computer architectures this is an extremely significant gift of equipment and the hiring of stan williams places us at the forefront of next generation discovery in computation nonlinear dynamical electronics and materials said texas a&m university system chancellor john sharp there is no other cleanroom in the state of texas that has all five of the high-end instruments hpe is donating and we plan to become a regional hub for next-generation nano- and micro-engineering we owe tremendous appreciation to hpe cto (chief technology officer) mark potter whose vision for leveraging our joint assets will build a world class laboratory and attract preeminent talent in the broad area of materials initially the center will focus on advanced materials fabrication and characterization future electronic devices advanced photonics and novel computer architectures research will aim to achieve results that both expand knowledge and motivate the next generation of computer scientists and architects for the benefit of society looking ahead the ability to make sense of the massive amounts of data generated in academic public and private sector settings will change not only how we do business but also how we live said potter also director of hewlett packard labs our success at evaluating the world around us and making breakthroughs we never thought possible hinges on our ability to apply technology texas a&m university has great traditions coupled with visionary leadership said williams tees hewlett packard enterprise center for computer architecture research director there are already world-class faculty in place who are contributing to the advancement of neuromorphic materials and new computing paradigms the students who come here are inspired by generations of successful aggie alumni and expect to work hard this is the ideal environment to do something completely new in computing untethered from legacy notions and i am excited by the opportunities that i see the center occupies 25 000 square feet of space in the giesecke engineering research building (gerb) tees also has contributed approximately $2 million for renovations to gerb to support the new equipment and will hire three faculty in this area among the equipment donated is a clustex used to deposit material layers on a wafer a titan cubed themis tem microscope helios sem/fib dual beam system an asm atomic layer deposition tool and a nanolab 460f1 electron microscope researchers can now develop next-generation computer chips for more powerful but energy-efficient computing integrated photonic devices and microsensors for biosensing/medical applications or better autonomous vehicles or flexible electronic devices and micro/nanofluidic systems for continuous health monitoring or point of care diagnosis in remote settings said dr arum han director of the aggiefab nanofabrication facility at texas a&m and professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering it typically takes three to four years of intensive effort and institutional support to acquire even one instrument that hpe just donated han said having five such high-end instruments coming to our cleanroom facility simultaneously is just absolutely amazing and is unheard of for any university cleanroom
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a team of researchers at texas a&m university has developed an innovative way to print therapeutics in 3d for regenerative medicine 3d bioprinting is emerging as a promising method for rapidly fabricating cell-containing constructs for designing new healthy functional tissues however one of the major challenges in 3d bioprinting is lack of control over cellular functions growth factors which are a special class of proteins can direct cellular fate and functions however these growth factors cannot be easily incorporated within a 3d-printed structure for a prolonged duration in a recent study conducted at texas a&m researchers in dr akhilesh k gaharwars lab in the department of biomedical engineering formulated a bioink consisting of 2d mineral nanoparticles to sequester and 3d print therapeutics at precise locations their findings were published in advanced healthcare materials the team has designed a new class of hydrogel bioinks 3d structures that can absorb and retain considerable amounts of water loaded with therapeutic proteins this bioink is made from an inert polymer polyethylene glycol (peg) and is advantageous for tissue engineering because it does not provoke the immune system however due to low viscosity of the peg polymer solution it is difficult to 3d print this type of polymer to overcome this limitation the team has found that combining peg polymers with nanoparticles leads to an interesting class of bioink hydrogels that can support cell growth and may have enhanced printability compared to polymer hydrogels by themselves this new technology based on a nanoclay platform developed by gaharwar assistant professor can be used for precise deposition of protein therapeutics this bioink formulation has unique shear-thinning properties that allow the material to be injected quickly stop flowing and then cure to stay in place which is highly desirable for 3d bioprinting applications this formulation using nanoclay sequesters the therapeutic of interest for increased cell activity and proliferation said dr charles w peak senior author on the study in addition the prolonged delivery of the bioactive therapeutic could improve cell migration within 3d printed scaffolds and can help in rapid vascularization of scaffolds gaharwar said the prolonged delivery of the therapeutic could also reduce overall costs by decreasing the therapeutic concentration as well as minimizing the negative side effects associated with supraphysiological doses overall this study provides proof of principle to print protein therapeutics in 3d that can be used to control and direct cell functions he said the research was supported by the national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering of the national institutes of health and the national science foundation
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kevin berto knew a graduate degree in ocean engineering would well equip him to contribute to the offshore energy industry this quickly proved to be true as his advisor dr jeffrey falzarano pointed him to a joint industry/academic research panel that was the perfect opportunity to draw upon his previous work experiences and further his educational pursuits organized by the society of naval architects and marine engineers (sname) offshore committee for wind technologies (oc-8) the panel focused on assessing how well the industry estimated wind-induced forces and associated overturning or capsizing moments on floating offshore installations using the currently available methods the studys focus resonated with me because wind is the only environmental factor explicitly considered in the us coast guard safety regulations for the stability of offshore units berto said therefore it is important that the industry designers get their estimates correct and that the us coast guard regulations afford these units an accurate safety margin to survive the worst-case storm conditions i felt i could play a role the study itself marked history as one of the largest collaborative efforts of a panel with over 25 diverse industry stakeholders contributing in-kind data to the sname oc-8 wind load comparative study berto served as the objective voice in receiving analyzing and drawing conclusions from the raw data the findings were published in an offshore technology conference paper titled a detailed look into the 2017 sname oc-8 comparative wind load study which was a sname otc best paper award winner the study provides an avenue to better protect lives the environment and the economic vitality of the offshore energy industry berto said in order to do this we must be able to accurately and consistently estimate the environmental forces imposed on the vessel
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the most exciting finding of the sname comparative study was the low variability and consistency of test results from the five contributing wind tunnels in further significance was that the results from the numerical computer-based equivalent of wind tunnel testing known as computational fluid dynamics (cfd) were largely indistinguishable from the wind tunnel results the findings highlight the potential of cfd as an important engineering tool to design safer vessels kevin and texas a&m university's role as an honest broker in comparing the various predictions from the society of naval architects and marine engineers (oc-8) wind loads on offshore platforms maintains its leadership position in this area falzarano said the industry has been using wind tunnels since the 1960s and the identified method is the present de-facto industry standard for accurately estimating the wind forces and moments on floating offshore units historically however one of the major holdbacks to regulatory acceptance has been the absence of a validated governing industry standard in an effort to close this gap this study successfully validated a drafted industry wind tunnel testing guideline which is a huge step forward picking up from a 1988 sname organized and texas a&m involved effort berto said the validated guideline facilitates transparency and improves the reliability of wind tunnel tests along with falzarano berto worked with co-authors david p hodapp from the chevron energy technology company; dr edward white a professor in the department of aerospace engineering and director of the texas a&m oran w nicks low-speed aeronautical wind tunnel; lisa brown a graduate student and test engineer at oran w nicks wind tunnel; and more than 25 world-wide industry stakeholders that participated in-kind to this pioneering comprehensive study
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the spacex falcon 9 rocket with the dragon cargo module lifted off from the florida space launch complex 40 at cape canaveral air force station on may 4 the commercial resupply services mission (crs-17) launched over 5 550 pounds of nasa cargo into orbit and successfully delivered it to the international space station (iss) on may 6 included in this cargo was a texas a&m university undergraduate capstone teams final project an experiment facility known as hermes which will be used to conduct experiments on asteroid particles in space the team made up of multidisciplinary engineering technology (mxet) mechatronics students luis orozco (embedded software) dustin tish (hardware systems) and jeremy coffelt (python software security and communications) celebrated the culmination of over a years work as they watched their project be launched into space
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the students took over the hermes prototype that was developed by an electronic systems engineering technology capstone team and moved their design to the three production systems that underwent testing validation and acceptance by t star nasa engineers and scientists at the johnson space center the first of its kind hermes is a class-1e experiment facility that will host and support four microgravity experiment tubes that will be changed out every three to six months by an iss mission specialist through 2024 the first set of four hermes experiments will investigate microgravity effects on regolith (moon dust) simulants this is the type of project that clearly demands the broad-based experiential education available to students pursuing the new mxet mechatronics focus area at texas a&m stated matthew leonard president of t star
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hermes is a self-contained system that is responsible for the monitoring and control of all aspects of the facility the system is composed of seven embedded intelligence devices six of them use a real-time operating system environment to monitor and control particular aspects of the facility or an individual experiment one of the devices is a beaglebone black which is the overall system and communications manager providing near real-time data and control capabilities for the scientists and engineers on earth hermes provides lighting imagery and vacuum resources to each experiment while transferring all data collected to both the solid-state storage that is part of the experiment cassette and the iss network drive to enable downloading on earth in addition hermes supports the addition of an external accelerometer that provides microgravity data to the scientists
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the public-private-academic model of applied research developed by t star has made the design and development of hermes an unprecedented success using a capstone project to undertake the initial prototype design before moving that project to an applied research effort for product delivery is a unique approach to developing space-worthy systems within budget and schedule requirements t star has implemented this work model in two other texas a&m capstone projects helikite and cardinal helikite has produced a working prototype capable of measuring small fluctuations in magnetic fields this system will be tested in late june when it is attached to an ultralight aircraft and then towed by a ground-based vehicle the system will allow nasa scientists to evaluate whether or not it could one day be used on mars
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the cardinal project implements a new approach to collecting asteroid particles at high altitudes it is intended to be an experimental facility attached to a high-altitude weather balloon once launched it will monitor several environmental parameters including barometric pressure when a preset altitude is reached the cardinal will automatically open its collection chamber and begin rotating the dust collection arm at a fixed rate once the system determines that the balloon is in position the rotating arm will be stowed and the chamber closed this new concept of collecting particles will provide a longer mission time with less contamination from the collection system itself from the hermes project to helikite and cardinal aggie students are changing the future of space experimentation and exploration
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natural gas hydrates are an abundant energy resource found in small permafrost areas in northern latitudes and vast subsea sediment deposits off the coasts of every continent these subsea reservoirs could be a future resource for the world but there are many technical and operational challenges involved in extracting methane from the hydrates dr i yucel akkutlu rob l adams 40 professor in petroleum engineering is participating in the gas hydrate research efforts at texas a&m university his work centers on the technical challenges precisely why and how quickly hydrates melt and recrystallize and under what conditions his newfound discoveries are the key to developing better models of hydrate behavior a critical step toward producing hydrates in a safe economical and environmentally responsible way gas hydrates occur in nature when small gas molecules such as biogenic methane are trapped in the cavities among the water molecules and create solid ice-like crystals explains akkutlu in appearance its like ice but if you put a match on it it would flame hydrate crystals are scattered among the rocks and sand particles present in vast subsea sediment deposits making them difficult to mine the most economical way to harvest the crystals is to melt them in place allowing the methane gas and water to flow through the sediment toward a production well unfortunately altering the chilled temperatures or high pressures in these locations can lead to unexpected hydrate recrystallization which could halt their production when hydrates melt the process of melting leads to a local temperature drop said akkutlu this will lead to a reformation of the ice or hydrates and this will create a blockage to the fluids when we are trying to produce the fluid to the well my role is to understand the crystallization melting and recrystallization phenomena in a repetitive way
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