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"they're always looking out for you and aren't afraid to let you know when they disagree you need that kind of guidance and reality check when you're doing something for the first time without them i'm not sure we would have made it this far"donnell said cash and his team epitomize the entrepreneurial mindset they strive to develop in the engineering entrepreneurship program"we have worked closely with ian for the past four years and watched the evolution of the product the personnel the company name along with the maturity of its leader ian cash he is a special person and has poured himself into this endeavor it is such a pleasure to see the successful product launch " donnell said "ian's strength of character his indomitable spirit and his commitment to excellence have all served to get this team across the finish line"cash comes from working in very large global companies so becoming an entrepreneur was new territory he said it takes discipline to keep pushing forward and offers a bit of advice to any current aggies considering a future as an entrepreneurdont quit its a tough road but you couldnt have picked a better place to start an entrepreneurship journey he said a&m has one of the biggest networks of ceos and entrepreneurs out there and all of the professors are tried and true successful entrepreneurs themselves youre in good hands see more about ctrl and their new bio-kinetic sleeve online
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the department of defense (dod) today named a state agency of the texas a&m university system to lead a national consortium for modernizing hypersonic flight capabilities the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) will manage a five-year $20 million-per-year dod initiative involving many of the nations top research universities the universities will work cooperatively among themselves and with other key research institutions of government national laboratories federally funded research centers and industry the university consortium for applied hypersonics (ucah) will work on everything from basic research to real-world capabilities in hypersonic flight systems the concept is for researchers from all of the institutions to work in close coordination together they will accelerate innovation to address the nations hypersonic needs and nurture the next generation of researchers in aerospace engineering and related fields tell us how we can help protect this nation and well be right there said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m system we have experience managing consortiums and our hypersonic research capabilities are second to none the ucah will be managed by tees under the leadership of one of the nations foremost hypersonic researchers dr rodney bowersox professor of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university initial operations will begin under the guidance of an impressive board of national experts from texas a&m the massachusetts institute of technology the university of minnesota the university of illinois at urbana-champaign the university of arizona the university of tennessee space institute morgan state university the california institute of technology purdue the university of california-los angeles and the georgia institute of technology texas a&m has become the hypersonics research center of the nation said dr m katherine banks texas a&m vice chancellor and dean of engineering our researchers and partners are unmatched and our new state-of-the-art facilities will fill critical gaps in us testing capabilities the dod contract comes as the texas a&m system is preparing to build the biggest enclosed hypersonic testing range in the nation as part of the george hw bush combat development complex on the rellis campus in bryan the ballistic aero-optics and materials will complement other cutting-edge hypersonic facilities at texas a&m such as the national aerothermochemistry and hypersonics laboratory and the aerospace laboratory for lasers electromagnetics and optics the ucah approach will include a major focus on modeling and testing to facilitate earlier and more certain progress on developing hypersonic systems the ucah will become a collaborative hypersonic ecosystem to bridge the so-called valley of death between promising research possibilities and actual real-world capabilities tees has already identified more than 41 institutions from at least 23 states committed to participating in the ucah participation is expected to increase in upcoming months to include additional institutions from across the country and from australia and the united kingdom this first-of-its kind consortium will be critical to advancing hypersonics research and innovation a key priority of the department of defense said michael kratsios acting under secretary of defense for research and engineering importantly through collaborative industry and academic partnerships it will also accelerate technology transfer and strengthen workforce development to meet the nations future warfighting needs tees currently manages a variety of consortia and brings extensive expertise in experimentation logistics contract management workforce development and protection of national security-related research its all headquartered here thanks to the support of chancellor sharp and the texas a&m system banks said
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susan and keith macivor 85 meredith macivor 19 and alan macivor β20 have established the tommy walker frank sr β50 endowed scholarship distributions from this generous endowment will be used to provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing pursuing an undergraduate degree in the college of engineering at texas a&m university the macivor family comes from a long line of aggies starting with susans father tommy walker frank my dads education at a&m was so important to him and he loved and supported the school his entire life susan said unfortunately his parents separated while he was attending a&m so my dad dropped out of school to support his mother and two sisters he never completed his degree and passed away at age 56 and he always regretted not going back and finishing his education although tommy was not able to receive his degree from texas a&m his legacy is carried on by his son-in-law keith and his two grandchildren meredith and alan our family has been so blessed with three generations of aggies obtaining an engineering education and wed like to pay it forward with this engineering scholarship susan said susan did not attend texas a&m but is proud to be an aggie daughter wife and mother she said she has always been very impressed with the quality of education as well as the network and support of its current and former students that texas a&m provides although i did not attend a&m i love the university and its aggie spirit! susan said my parents had all three of their children in college at the same time so i attended our local university so that i could live at home and help decrease school expenses both of my parents were avid fans so i grew up with an appreciation of the aggie spirit and traditions it has been a longtime dream of mine to provide a scholarship in memory of my dad the macivor family aims to help aggie engineering students achieve their goals and obtain their degrees they hope that this gift will remind students that in the aggie spirit former students and their families are cheering them on and are with them every step of the way my family is honored to provide this gift in memory of my dad susan said hes been gone a long time and i miss him every day were so happy to see his aggie spirit live on through this endowment
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the texas a&m college of engineering is one of the leading engineering programs in the united states ranking first in undergraduate enrollment and ninth in graduate enrollment endowments supporting the students in the college have an immeasurable impact on their education if you are interested in supporting the college of engineering and its departments or would like more information on how you can give please contact kelly corcoran senior director of development
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structural damage to any of the nations ailing bridges can come with a hefty price of billions of dollars in repairs new bridge designs promise more damage-resistant structures and consequently lower restoration costs but if these designs havent been implemented in the real world predicting how they can be damaged and what repair strategies should be implemented remain unresolved in a study published in the journal of structural engineering texas a&m university and the university of colorado boulder researchers have conducted a comprehensive damage and repair assessment of a still-to-be-implemented bridge design using a panel of experts from academia and industry the researchers said the expert feedback method offers a unique and robust technique for evaluating the feasibility of bridge designs that are still at an early research and development phase bridges particularly those in high-seismic regions are vulnerable to damage and will need repairs at some point but now the question is what kind of repairs should be used for different types and levels of damage what will be the cost of these repairs and how long will the repairs take these are all unknowns for new bridge designs said dr petros sideris assistant professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering we have answered these questions for a novel bridge design using an approach that is seldomly used in structural engineering most bridges are monolithic systems made of concrete poured over forms that give the bridges their shape these bridges are strong enough to support their own weight and other loads such as traffic however sideris said if there is an unexpected occurrence of seismic activity these structures could crack and remedying the damage would be exorbitantly expensive to overcome these shortcomings sideris and his team have developed a new design called a hybrid sliding-rocking bridge instead of a monolithic design these bridges are made of columns containing limb-inspired joints and segments hence in the event of an earthquake the joints allow some of the energy from the ground motion to diffuse while the segments move slightly sliding over one another rather than bending or cracking despite the overall appeal of the hybrid sliding-rocking bridge design little is known about how the bridges will behave in real-world situations
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to find the correct repair strategy we need to know what the damages look like said sideris our bridge design is relatively new and so there is little scientific literature that we could refer to and so we took an unconventional approach to fill our gap in knowledge by recruiting a panel of experts in bridge damage and repair for their study sideris dr abbie liel professor at the university of colorado boulder and their team recruited a panel of eight experts from industry and academia to determine the damage states in experimentally tested hybrid sliding-rocking segment designed columns based on their evaluations of the observed damage the panel provided repair strategies and estimated costs for repair the researchers then used that information to fix the broken columns retested the columns under the same initial damage-causing conditions and compared the repaired columns behavior to that of the original column through computational investigations the panel found that columns built with their design sustained less damage overall compared to bridges built with conventional designs in fact the columns showed very little damage even when subject to motions reminiscent of a powerful once-in-a-few-thousand-years earthquake furthermore the damage could be repaired relatively quickly with grout and carbon fibers suggesting that no special strategy was required for restoration fixing bridges is a slow process and costs a significant amount of money which then indirectly affects the community said sideris novel bridge designs that may have a bigger initial cost for construction can be more beneficial in the long run because they are sturdier the money saved can then be used for helping the community rather than repairing infrastructure this work is funded by the national science foundation other contributors include dr jakub valigura former graduate student researcher from the university of colorado boulder and dr mohammad salehi former graduate student in the civil and environmental engineering department at texas a&m
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in response to the face mask shortage the us recently faced a team of students bonded together to create the easymask funded by the national science foundations (nsf) i-corps site program it is a superior alternative to homemade masks that provides a safer user experience to alleviate the demand for medical-grade face masks conserve n95 masks (surgical masks) for medical workers and provide a dependable reusable and inexpensive face mask to the general population our team designed the easymask noble gutierrez said the easymask concept provides a better seal and protection than disposable and homemade masks and utilizes common materials found at home as filters gutierrez 22 is a student in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering and a member of the team who created the easymask during the aggies against covid-19 virtual competition his team members are ian suarez veronica perez sterling laboo cecilia torres and thomas goodwin half of the members are engineering students while the other half are public health students the products success provided eligibility into the nsf i-corps site program through this program students receive guidance and funding to take their products from conceptualization to the market
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our team received an email invitation from the nsf i-corps site program following our top-10 placement in the aggies against covid-19 event gutierrez said we were grateful for the opportunity to explore market potential the product is a mask frame that combines comfort with sustainability allowing users to interchange the mask filters with typical household items common household fabrics can be as effective as surgical masks in the filtration of particles depending on the combination and layering of materials gutierrez said the easymasks simple frame allows the user to insert their own filters made from fabrics that can be easily frequently and inexpensively replaced the mask eliminates the compulsory need for users to regularly adjust their masks reducing the risk of contamination"
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to receive further funding through the program the team had to conduct market research and adapt their product based on feedback covid-19s impact required the students to accomplish most of these feats virtually i facilitated our product design requirement features conducted all 30 customer interviews and program presentations gutierrez said covid-19 turned our entrepreneurship experience virtual and our team was incredible we were fully committed cooperative and continued to develop our product it was a tremendous pleasure to work with eager and capable team members to address the global humanitarian crisis the team will continue working on their product with the nsf i-corps site program to develop their prototype and aid in the continual fight against covid-19
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come december 2020 washington bryan 95 will have been with great lakes dredge & dock company llc (gldd) for 25 years working his way through several positions since he graduated with a degree in ocean engineering from texas a&m university bryan an operations manager for gldds site engineering department oversees a team of 12 project engineers who in turn supervise 100 engineers in the field while he no longer attends texas a&m bryan explained that his maroon roots still run deep when he took over the operations manager role he began training alumni to recruit at their own alma maters "so now we have a three-person team that actually does the recruiting at texas a&m and they have all graduated within in the last three years " said bryan "it has been hugely successful because not only do they get to visit texas a&m again but they are invested in determining the future engineers that they will be working with on a daily basis" in addition to getting recent graduates involved in the recruiting process bryan said he established a winter internship program in 2005 to help up-and-coming engineers build their resume and gain a hands-on introduction to the company and the dredging industry "this has developed into one of our most successful means of finding our next generation of engineers " he said with a large portion of the companys market being beach nourishment the engineering teams are typically busiest in the winter when coastal tourism is low and beaches can be shut down for restoration and replenishment operations the winter internship program is an ideal time for interns to get a feel for real-world dredging engineering and determine if they are interested in joining the industry "the program starts about two days after a student is done with their fall finals " said bryan "we fly them to a job site they work right through the winter break and then typically a few days before their classes start back up again we fly them back to school or to their homes it gives them that two- or three-week glimpse into the work that gldd performs and what the industry is all about" "maybe it's only two or three weeks over the break but at least they get to see exactly what that industry has to offer " he said "it gives them a better perspective from which to make career decisions and helps them develop their resume at the same time it provides gldd with an opportunity to see what the engineer has to offer" experiences such as this are vital for young engineers looking for full-time jobs so what advice would bryan give to students looking to begin their career after college "figure out what you want to do before you start interviewing " said bryan "even if you find out later in life that its not what you want to do have a direction do some preparatory work before you talk to companies research the position they are trying to fill make sure the objectives on your resume or that you highlight during your actual interview are in line with the position you are applying for" "secondly having some sort of related work experience or research on your resume is critical to get a recruiters attention " he said "go after engineering internships some of our most successful hires are people who have interned with our company there is nothing better than working for a company to determine if its the path you want to take for your career while it might be fun to be a lifeguard every summer during your college career the lack of an engineering-related internship wont support your resume" along with advice to current students bryan would like to see his fellow former students find ways to extend a helping hand and give back to texas a&m through offering internship programs "if you have any involvement in recruiting for your company see what you can do about providing internship opportunities for our future aggie ocean engineers " he said "even if the engineers do not end up working for your company the added experience in a related engineering field might make the difference when they are applying for their first job" "in 2018 when dr (robert) randall was retiring one of our former students found out that gldd has hired more texas a&m ocean engineers than any other company while i was surprised at the news i couldnt be happier " said bryan "while not all of the engineers we have hired over the years still work with us i was glad that we were part of getting them started on their careers"
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david senor a researcher at pacific northwest national laboratory has been appointed to the nuclear engineering advisory council at texas a&m university senor was named a 2018 distinguished former student in the department of nuclear engineering and has spent eight years using his expertise in tritium to mentor students in the nuclear engineering senior design course as part of the advisory council senor will provide guidance and external review to the department to help shape the education of the upcoming generation of engineers dr senor has been making excellent contributions to our academic programs said dr kenneth lee peddicord professor in the nuclear engineering department through his technical guidance students are being exposed to out-of-the box thinking and projects that are important for the country senor earned his bachelors masters and doctoral degrees in nuclear engineering and has also created the david 88 and denise 85 senor scholarship alongside his wife to support one or more full-time students in the department he hopes to serve as a mentor for students the way that peddicord once advised him my perspective as an author and researcher from a national lab allows me to advise on more than the science curriculum said senor even the best technical students can benefit from learning communications writing and presenting
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the control of solids formation and their deposition are major flow assurance challenges to design and operate any deepwater production systems of hydrocarbons one of the most challenging flow assurance issues is the management of wax deposition at low temperature and high-pressure conditions of waxy crude oils causing operational problems from downhole to the processing facilities an accurate knowledge of the cooldown time and cooling temperature is needed especially for the emergency (unplanned) shutdown for managing heat retention and low temperatures of the production system before the system cools below the wax appearance temperature this may rely on the correct descriptions of the reservoir fluid properties and thermal insulation of the subsea production system including equipment over the life of the field dr keshawa shukla in collaboration with his graduate student mayank vishal labh addressed these issues in a chapter he wrote for the book paraffins the book chapter managing paraffin/wax challenges in deepwater hydrocarbon production systems deals with wax management issues in order to properly design and operate a subsea production system consisting of the pipe-in-pipe flowline flexible riser and subsea equipment their study recommends that the subsea hardware such as water stop and equipment valves along with the flowline riser and jumpers should be adequately insulated in order to prevent any cold spots (low temperature) and achieve sufficient cooldown time for the shut-in operations of the entire subsea production system shukla a professor of practice in subsea engineering in the department of multidisciplinary engineering at texas a&m university has over 36 years of professional experience in the academic and oil and gas industry in the disciplines of teaching research project management and engineering and is a subject matter expert in subsea field development thermodynamics multiphase flow fluid phase behavior and heat transfer flow assurance design and operations gas production from hydrate reservoirs compositional variations in reservoirs software development application of artificial intelligence in subsea processing and many more
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dr mark balas has been appointed to the leland t jordan professorship balas a professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering joined texas a&m university in january 2020 i am truly grateful to the lt jordan family for this wonderful professorship " he said balas research interests are in the theory and application of adaptive control systems with particular emphasis on large-scale and infinite-dimensional systems and quantum information systems his research has been cited more than 9 000 times and he is a fellow of the american society of mechanical engineers the institute of electrical and electronics engineers and the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics
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the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university welcomes dr michel kinsy this semester kinsy joins as associate professor and is eager to get started on the important work being done in the department and the college there is a level of research that you can engage in here that is not readily available in most departments around the country or in the world for that matter kinsy said his core area of research is computer architecture he is especially passionate about discovering and creating the set of definitions methodologies and hardware primitives that enable the integrity checking of computing processes the access control and monitoring of system resources and hardware root-of-trust solutions for secure computation β something he calls design for security another central aspect of kinsys research efforts is the translation of basic engineering discoveries into applicable solutions in fact he is one of just a handful of secure systems researchers who can claim that their academic hardware designs have been directly incorporated into commercial and military systems bringing expertise in cybersecurity and a passion for attacking important engineering and computational problems he has also begun his appointment as associate director of the texas a&m cybersecurity center as associate director he hopes to develop the centers technical research and development enterprise alongside interim director dr danny davis their goal is to accelerate the centers ascension to be the premier academic destination for government agencies and industry entities looking for ahead-of-the-curve solutions for their cybersecurity needs and for the students interested in hands-on cybersecurity training cybersecurity incidents are happening at an astonishing frequency scale and sophistication kinsy said the center being part of the texas a&m university system has access to tremendous resources that are almost unmatched anywhere in the country β chief among them the sheer number and caliber of faculty members engaged in cybersecurity research coupled with the deep-rooted culture of academic excellence and service among the student body as he starts his career at texas a&m kinsy urges engineering undergraduate students to embrace more mathematics courses such as number theory discrete mathematics logic and linear algebra early on in their academic careers β even students focusing on hardware although i am a hardware researcher these courses form the foundation of my engineering thinking process and my cybersecurity problem-solving methodology he said the cybersecurity field is moving toward security through proofs and not merely by construction due to ever-increasing complexity of our computing systems the main challenge is that if you are not exposed to these courses in a substantial way early on in your academic training by the time you really need them or use them it is often too late
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now in the last year of her doctoral program shreedevi arun kumar has found a passion for research and teaching to help her pursue those paths in the department of biomedical engineering arun kumar has received the 2020 us senator phil gramm doctoral fellowship from texas a&m university arun kumar has been involved in research for the last four years and only recently began to develop her skills as an instructor with the help of a graduate teaching fellowship in 2019 that really opened my eyes to the fact that i loved teaching especially when undergrads come back to me and say theyre glad they took the class arun kumar said i really love the interaction with the students in research arun kumars work is mainly in tissue engineering and drug delivery studies she works to gain a better understanding of the impact hydrogels have on cells as well as innovative ways to deliver drugs for cancer applications arun kumars own experience both as a researcher and a former undergraduate student influences what she brings to the classroom i always wanted to know real-life examples arun kumar said i would of course want to know the basics but beyond that i think what interested me in this field was the relevance the translational aspect of it thats what i try to incorporate in my classes one example was when she used examples of a project she had worked on involving vaccine application several of the undergraduate students who worked with her on the project also took the course she taught that was exciting for them to see something they had worked being talked about in a class setting arun kumar said arun kumar said she has renewed emotional motivation to continue on her path with the gramm doctoral fellowship as you go into your phd you start to lose the picture of why you came here what are you passionate about arun kumar said i think when youre recognized with something like this for your contribution that motivates you to go to the finish line this is what ive been working for and now this is the reminder that i should keep moving keep pushing arun kumars experience combining research and teaching has also impacted thoughts on her plans after graduation ive always wanted to pursue research but i think mentoring is something ive grown to enjoy arun kumar said i for sure would want some form of mentoring or teaching in my future
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dr james hubbard jr is among the latest members appointed to serve on the united states board on army research and development the board is an independent advisory resource for the us military on topics including research development and the application of science and technology in support of military matters appointed by the president of the national academy of sciences members are widely recognized experts in industry academia and the military "this is a chance to serve my country by providing expertise in a broad variety of technical topics of interest to the army " hubbard said "the experience of others on the board will also allow me to grow both technically and personally in new areas" hubbard who serves as oscar s wyatt jr '45 chair i professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering said it is an honor to serve on the board and that he hopes it will bring recognition to the expertise texas a&m university can provide "i am hoping my combined 40 years of engineering experience from my career brings a fresh perspective to the challenging problems the army faces in its attempt to continuously upgrade and modernize to ensure the safety of our troops and the nation " hubbard said as part of the boards duties members will be assessing the feasibility of the us army's strategic long range cannon program looking specifically at the propellant projectiles electromagnetic launch and the cannon itself according to the national academies' official description of the program it aims to achieve the capability to fire a projectile up to 1 000 miles at hypersonic speeds hubbard previously served six years on the us naval research advisory committee and eight years on the us air force studies board on which he remains an active member a member of the national academy of engineering hubbard joined texas a&m in early 2017 first serving as a visiting fellow of the hagler institute for advanced study before accepting a permanent position he leads the starlab a state-of-the-art motion-capture research space well-suited for testing and developing new methods and technologies the lab features more than 40 high-speed motion capture cameras a capture volume of 40 feet by 40 feet and a holodeck-like environment hubbard is internationally known for his research in aeroacoustics for noise control adaptive structures spatially distributed transducers and the extension of modem time-domain control methodologies into the spatial domain for the monitoring of distributed systems
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researchers from the texas a&m university college of engineering the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and los alamos national laboratory (lanl) are improving magnesium alloys usability which could mean stronger lighter vehicles with improved gas efficiency this collaboration is made possible by the texas a&m system national laboratories office and lanl drs ibrahim karaman amine benzerga and alan needleman doctoral student wahaz nasim from tees; and dr ricardo lebensohn from lanl are collaborating to improve magnesium alloy manufacturing processes in order to make the alloy easier to use for a variety of applications currently aluminum alloys are most commonly used in aerospace defense and automotive components because they are light and easy to manipulate at room temperature however magnesium is more than 30% lighter than aluminum if magnesium alloys could be fabricated and processed more easily and strengthened through processing then using magnesium alloys in place of aluminum could significantly reduce fuel consumption and carbon footprints and enhance maneuverability in transportation due to the lighter weight and higher specific strength unfortunately magnesium is difficult to manipulate into different forms at room temperature and it is difficult to process the alloys current methods require high temperatures to manipulate magnesium which raises costs and decreases the overall alloy strength through thermomechanical processing methods researchers at tees have the ability to further strengthen magnesium alloys and the potential to increase formability of magnesium alloys at room temperature according to karaman lanl plays an important part in this project because they have one of the best modeling approaches for predicting the behavior of metals the results of their modeling will inform how tees researchers process the magnesium alloy in order to determine the appropriate methods for making it easier to work with the processing methods these researchers are exploring are based on the idea that one can engineer the anisotropy of magnesium alloys anisotropy refers to how substances display variations in physical properties along different material crystal directions and sample axes a simple visual example would be wood wood is easier to split along the grain than across it as benzerga explained it is time to engineer that which we cannot suppress materials scientists have been trying to suppress or minimize the anisotropy of wrought products especially in technologically important lightweight applications such as aluminum alloys and magnesium alloys our goal is not to suppress anisotropy but to engineer it so as to actually improve material performance the processing methods involve heating and pressing or extruding the magnesium alloys at different temperatures and pressing/extrusion rates in order to orient the crystal domains in the metal differently this process forces the grains of the metal to recrystallize in ways that make the alloy easier to manipulate at room temperature lanls modeling techniques allow the researchers to test a variety of processing steps very quickly in comparison with experimental techniques nasim gave the example that over the summer (2020) he was able test over 1 000 methods with the simulations something that would have taken significantly longer if it needed to be done experimentally lanls modeling techniques are also very accessible to researchers outside of the organization and the open access is a huge asset to the science community another aspect of the project involves developing an index that can be used to determine the level of formability necessary for a project thereby the optimal processing method for the alloy for that situation according to lebensohn thats the most exciting aspect the possibility of demonstrating the feasibility of going beyond a trial-and-error edisonian approach to material design combining limited experimentation with advanced modeling and inverse optimization to discover novel processing routes to produce material with superior mechanical properties he said in addition to advances in the field and potential future applications this collaboration has given nasim a unique opportunity in his position as a doctoral student karaman explained that nasim plays a fundamental role in this research both at tees and at lanl nasim shared that he had learned a significant amount about the experimental side of his work at tees but he was missing some fundamentals working with lanl has allowed him to fill the gaps in his knowledge and open up his future career possibilities to both experimental and computational avenues this story originally appeared on the texas a&m system national laboratories office website
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in march 2020 new york city an icon of america was unfortunately named an early epicenter of the novel coronavirus now seven months later america faces a new surge in coronavirus cases and researchers at texas a&m university hope to provide information and context to help with the battle ahead rich whittle a doctoral student at texas a&m cites in a recent study that by april 2020 new york city accounted for more than a third of the nations confirmed cases with a transmission rate five times higher than the rest of the country whittle wanted to look at these early stages of the pandemic spread in new york neighborhoods to discover if there were any socioeconomic factors that could be associated with the high positivity rate of covid-19
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the study published in bmc medicine identified four significant predictors of covid-19 cases in new york city: neighborhoods with higher population densities led to an increase in the positivity rate; neighborhoods with younger populations (under 18 years old) also led to an increase; households with a higher income led to a decrease; and race showed a significant association with detected covid-19 cases β both a lower percentage of white population and higher percentage of black population led to increased positivity rates from what is available in the early stages this is what were seeing from the data and we know those early stages are really important to keep this and future pandemics under control said dr ana diaz artiles assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m and co-author of the study the study used spatial modeling techniques to look at data from roughly 60 000 cases during the first month of the pandemic in new york city im really interested in spatial statistics when i was in the military i worked in geospatial intelligence so i have a background interest in that said whittle and i was taking dr diaz artiles stats class at the time so i thought i could combine those two interests and have a look at an ecological study related to covid-19 whittle initiated the study as his final class project for diaz artiles spring design of experiments and statistical methods course (aero 689) this class gives the opportunity to solve problems that the students are interested in said diaz artiles these classes are really useful for students not only in terms of learning statistical tools but to apply them in practical applications that could even lead to impactful results and publications in addition to academic interest whittle was motivated to pursue the study because of the value the results could provide both now and in the future theres a need to understand the beginning stage of the pandemic said whittle and i think in america certainly now theres a lot of discontent theres a definite public interest in understanding the response in the initial stages of the pandemic whittle and diaz artiles emphasize that understanding the early factors and influences of past pandemics such as the h1n1 pandemic of 2009 and the one we face today is important in helping to inform future management hopefully our study will provide a better understanding of the main factors that impact the spread of the disease thus improving future decision making in the early stages of a pandemic said diaz artiles
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when asked william villalobos 21 often explains what petroleum engineering involves and why he enjoys studying the subject while this type of engagement is typical for students in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university this undergraduate actively seeks ways to open a dialog on the subject currently he is organizing a summit at texas a&m involving students a representative from the texas railroad commission and oilfield professionals to discuss health safety and the environmental aspects of oilfield operations villalobos took the time to answer questions and share his thoughts on why all petroleum engineers and the public should be familiar with the more positive aspects of the oil and gas industry q: did you have any contact with the oil and gas industry while growing up a: yes i moved to an oilfield town in east texas called winnsboro when i was about eight years old before then i lived in peru and the dallas area while in winnsboro my stepdad introduced me to the inner workings of the oil field through his oil field construction company which often assembled production equipment and conducted other labor-intensive oil field operations q: what were your college degree plans a: i attended northeast texas community college fresh out of high school and graduated with an associates degree in science then i transferred to texas a&m to pursue a bachelors degree in either petroleum or chemical engineering i ended up finding petroleum engineering more interesting q: why did you choose petroleum engineering a: as a field hand for b&k construction i considered my knowledge of the construction of drilling sites pipelines and production equipment to be a great stepping stone toward a petroleum engineering degree also an uncle who worked as a petroleum engineer spoke highly of the position and helped me decide to pursue this field q: why come to texas a&m a: out of all the petroleum engineers i worked with the aggies would spend their spare time teaching me some of the basic principles of daily drilling and production operations these generous actions encouraged me to attend texas a&m which in my opinion is the best and most reputable institution for this career path q: have any other work experiences shaped your goals a: yes during my internship with dimock operating company the owner explained to me how to handle small business negotiations meet regulatory compliance with the texas railroad commission and maintain worker safety during workover operations since then my goals have always included emphasizing regulatory and safety relations for drilling engineers q: are there any other experiences youd like to mention a: as a lab assistant in the petroleum engineering department i participated in gas and chemical research the most interesting findings to me were the minimum miscible pressures of varying gas combinations for unconventional reservoirs the function of huff-n-puff pressure injections and how flue gases usually a waste product could be used to enhance hydraulic fracturing operations q: are you involved with student organizations a: im a current member and the former chairman of the international association of drilling contractors (iadc) student chapter during my tenure as chairman i was able to introduce students of all majors to oil-field related professional development workshops rig tours sponsored conferences and unconventional operations q: how do you think the industry is doing with awareness and engagement a: there is room for improvement to date the negative publicity about the industry has been more successful at engaging new students while there are valid negative points there are also positive aspects that the oil industry provides for society for example this industry produces energy and materials needed for medical supplies cosmetics battery advancement technologies etc and it utilizes advanced technological resources to improve extraction methods students are usually amazed by the robotic systems fluid mechanics systems and well-logging tools i mention during my brief discussions with them so i think raising awareness about these technologies would improve new student engagement q: why take on organizing a summit a: i found myself always having to explain what petroleum engineering is and my reasons for choosing this particular career path feedback from these conversations led me to wonder how academics state regulators and industry representatives interacted with each other and the public on a daily basis because of my involvement with iadc i was able to organize a summit for april 2021 to include texas railroad commissioner representative christi craddick a process safety director and oilfield professionals through this summit i hope to educate the public especially students about oil and gas health safety and environmental operations i consider this to be a positive and beneficial engagement with the next generation
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start your engines! students recently founded a chapter of the society of automotive engineers (sae) at the higher education center at mcallen (hecm) and are looking to recruit new members texas a&m university opened the hecm to provide top-tier higher education opportunities to students in the rio grande valley students at the hecm are students of texas a&m and can complete their degree in mcallen there are two engineering degrees that are offered fully in mcallen designed to support the development of engineers for the rio grande valley industry sae is for students interested in building designing racing and testing automotive and commercial vehicles while simultaneously making professional connections with engineers worldwide i realized the need for student organizations at hecm to help polish their engineering skills said dr muzammil arshad the founding faculty advisor of the sae hecm chapter this is accomplished by having professional student organizations such as the sae as a department of multidisciplinary engineering i believe that sae is a great fit for us members of sae develop their knowledge of mobility solutions through hands-on competitions that range from building cars planes automobiles and even snowmobiles sae international hosts various competitions and races to test the students creations these events range from electric vehicles to aerospace designs for example students can re-engineer an existing snowmobile in the sae clean snowmobile challenge and compete in events such as emissions noise fuel economy/endurance in the autodrive challenge students make autonomous vehicles and race through urban terrains these events are only a glimpse into the opportunities available to sae members not only do these events require a diverse array of expertise but they allow members to showcase their skills as interdisciplinary students the competitions work to refine their engineering skills and bring them into practice arshad said if they win a competition its a huge national success even if they don't win it gives them the confidence that they can physically apply what theyve learned at a national level one of the students already involved in sae is president kassie juarez after hearing about the opportunity from arshad she immediately took on the role of a leader i want students to join because its focused on building the necessary skillset an engineering student needs to survive in the real world said juarez i feel like it will give (students) a different perspective of how their job is going to be if they go into the automotive or engineering field due to covid-19 some of the larger sae events are on hold however juarez has several ideas to help members in the meantime such as seminars held by local engineers workshops on resume building and creating linkedin accounts the hecm wants to use sae as a catalyst to recruit students to the organization and highlight their strides as a university i think doing these types of workshops will help the students get out of their comfort zone and start meeting other people juarez said we are trying to push ourselves and create new opportunities for students to come to the higher education center sae at mcallen is accepting new members until mid-november if interested contact arshad
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a team of researchers is creating mobile robots for military applications that can determine with or without human intervention whether wheels or legs are more suitable to travel across terrains the defense advanced research projects agency (darpa) has partnered with dr kiju lee at texas a&m university to enhance these robots' ability to self-sufficiently travel through urban military environments the darpa offensive swarm-enabled tactics (offset) program awarded lee associate professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution and the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering and a team of graduate students another opportunity after her prior successful accomplishments on developing a mixed-reality swarm simulator with embedded consensus-based decision making for adaptive human-swarm teaming as part of the offset sprint-3 this project was showcased at offsets third field experiment (fx3) together with other participating teams
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i have recently been awarded a new darpa contract to join the offset sprint-5 effort focusing on enhancements to (the robots) physical testbeds lee said through this new project i will develop unmanned ground vehicles with agile and versatile locomotive capabilities for urban military operations lee and her team are developing an adaptable wheel-and-leg transformable robot (Ξ±-waltr) that can traverse over varying surfaces including staircases more efficiently the Ξ±-waltr will move with wheels or legs depending on their immediate need and will be able to decide for itself which to use
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legged locomotion is more versatile but suffers from inherent structural mechanical and control complexities lee said the proposed testbed will be equipped with novel wheel/leg transformable mechanisms which can switch between the two locomotion modes actively adapting to its environment but without needing any additional actuator the team is rapidly developing prototypes and will showcase this new hardware platform at the offset fx5 tentatively scheduled for february 2021
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although created for military use the team hopes this technology will transcend this field while the current focus is on defense and other military applications these types of adaptable mobile robots can be applied to many other areas such as space domestic service surveillance and agriculture said lee the offset sprint-5 effort is led by lee along with the help of five graduate students and one undergraduate student chuanqi zheng siddharth sane vishnu kalyanram kangneoung lee sohil parsana and jenna horn
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since texas a&m university reopened its campuses at the start of the fall semester there were many safety precautions taken to help slow the spread of covid-19 the requirement to wear a face mask was one seeing the need for masks and being a small tight-knit department of students faculty and staff the department of ocean engineering quickly took this one step further with a new student-led initiative and organization focused on providing support to students on both the college station and galveston campuses participants in this program are now working to supply the ocean engineering family with custom face masks information and more
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mentorship in ocean engineering (moe) is designed to help students excel academically develop their professional network and build a sense of community within the ocean engineering department said alexis lexi miller senior and program leader we noticed that the department could use the help of a new organization to lead students down the path of success and that a three-tier (academic professional social) system was the best way to accomplish this professor laurrie cordes our faculty advisor is a very successful woman in engineering and we feel honored that she is supporting our goals while moe's original goals for the fall semester included service and social events like a beach cleanup at the galveston campus career fair and interview preparation and tutoring sessions the onset of the coronavirus pandemic shifted their focus instead of letting this chaotic time affect our dedication to improving the ocean engineering department we decided to find ways to adapt said program chairman and senior sebastiao appleton figueira not only have we managed to arrange ways to conduct our events remotely but we were also able to start an initiative within the department aimed at keeping our students faculty and staff safe throughout the semester this initiative included working with department head dr sharath girimaji to order custom ocean engineering face masks for students faculty and staff on the college station and galveston campuses additionally the organization produced pamphlets on how to care for the facemasks how to properly social distance on campus and safe event ideas that follow the centers for disease control and prevention and university covid-19 guidelines
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in addition to preparing their peers for classes during covid-19 professional representative and junior steven bradshaw said he hopes that moes professional initiatives stand to benefit students as well for example the group has created a networking system in which undergraduate students will be mentored by industry professionals this program will allow mentors to shape the career paths of our students by providing them with professional and academic advice and sharing their experiences in the ocean engineering field said bradshaw we believe this will help students decide which industry they would like to go into given that we hope to have mentors from naval architecture offshore subsea defense and coastal engineering this will also enable students to begin developing their professional network to use for internships and full-time recruitment all while still working on their studies bradshaw said by providing academic support professional mentors and events on both campuses moe will also give students a chance to make lasting friendships build their gpa and be better prepared to succeed in industry sam janner senior and academic representative added that moe welcomes all undergraduate students interested in ocean engineering to join we also want to make sure to let undeclared freshmen know that they are free to join this organization and utilize its resources if they would like to explore their options with our department and field said janner the creation of this new organization really shows how much the department of ocean engineering has grown in recent years
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janner said that many students will begin receiving emails from moe at the start of each semester and the group will hold introductory meetings to anyone interested along with emails nate baker junior and social representative said the group plans to grow their communication to help the ocean engineering student body on both campuses come together and get to know one another via social media and slack i am excited to be part of a new organization led by highly motivated students who are set on building relationships between their peers their department and members of the industry said baker we have ambitious goals and as we approach completing them the benefits will pay off
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while wildfires remain an unpredictable threat researchers at texas a&m university are attempting to mitigate that uncertainty by using mathematical and statistical models to identify the most cost-effective and efficient strategies for reducing wildfire risk through vegetation removal or fuel treatment strategies texas a&m is represented by dr lewis ntaimo professor and head of the wm michael barnes β64 department of industrial and systems engineering and texas a&m agrilife researchs dr jianbang gan forest management and economics professor in the department of ecology and conservation biology the two texas a&m researchers received $280 000 of a $550 0000 national science foundation grant for this interdisciplinary collaborative project with dr oleg prokopyev in the swanson school of engineering at the university of pittsburgh ntaimo who serves as the projects principal investigator from texas a&m specializes in systems modeling mathematical optimization and simulation with application to wildfire management gans contributions will center on forest economics and management and response strategies to environmental disturbances like climate change and wildfires simulating fires to anticipate risk the diversified expertise from the texas a&m project leaders will help produce outcomes that provide landowners and at-risk communities with alternatives to other potentially more costly methods of wildfire prevention or management fire is a big concern in texas but fuel treatments and fire protection like firefighting are very expensive gan said with this research were trying to come up with ways to minimize fuel treatment and firefighting costs; and most importantly lessen damages from fire to protect human life property and natural resources when left unmanaged vegetation fuels wildfire ignition and spread removing that vegetation through fuel treatment methods such as prescribed burns grazing and tree thinning can help reduce wildfire risk however these management methods come with a price given the ongoing wildfires devastating the western us our research project focusing on fuel treatment planning is very timely indeed ntaimo noted the main goal of our project is to develop mathematical models that will help fire managers and planners with fuel treatment options to minimize the occurrence of potentially large-scale wildfires such as the ones we are seeing today identifying most-effective treatment solutions various factors including population growth urbanization changes in land use and weather variability due to climate change continue to amplify wildfire risk leaving livestock wildlife public and private land and entire communities increasingly vulnerable without appropriate action gan said their models will consider factors such as critical locations of concern in at-risk areas seasonal conditions and spatial patterns of vegetation in order to predict what fuel treatment methods would be most effective under certain conditions and when and how they should be implemented for optimal economic efficiency historical data from the texas a&m forest service will be used to build and test these models the model simulations will allow researchers to anticipate threats and identify optimal solutions for realistic large-scale problems posed by wildfires
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catherine dillier has always loved the science of mixing chemicals β now her attention is on the fuel that makes rockets go growing up with a strong interest in math and science dillier enjoyed mixing random household items together spent summers doing educational workbooks and found refuge in her ability to solve equations although she did not know then how to apply her interests she has found her niche within the turbomachinery laboratory at texas a&m university her current research focuses on solid composite propellants using formulations she adjusts additives to a propellant so it can meet specific criteria this criterion can include things like burning rate and how this burning rate can affect the impact and temperature sensitivity or the strength of a propellant
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i get to formulate these propellants and then burn them it is the best of both worlds you get the chemistry and then you get the combustion and fire dillier said thats the fun stuff if you had told me when i was little that this is what i was going to do i'd laugh and say that this is not a real job as an undergrad dillier intended to work toward a safety certificate in chemical engineering until she crossed paths with dr eric petersen director of the turbomachinery lab petersen invited her to tour the lab and offered her a position dillier graduated from the department with her bachelors degree in december 2014 completed her masters degree in 2016 and is now working toward her doctoral degree the nice thing about mechanical engineering is that you're exposed to so much said dillier you can find the avenue you like because of the broadness and available routes within mechanical for me that avenue is combustion
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dr melissa grunlan and dr le xie are among 19 distinguished texas a&m university faculty honored as 2020 chancellor enhancing development and generating excellence in scholarship (edges) fellows launched in 2019 edges fellowships were developed with resources from texas a&m university system chancellor john sharp to honor incentivize and boost mid-career faculty at the associate or early full professor rank who are making significant marks in their discipline the recognition highlights texas a&ms intentional commitment to intensively support retain and recognize faculty with significant and sustained accomplishments and the promise of continued high-impact scholarship these awards recognize the priority of texas a&m university system chancellor john sharp to develop and support faculty members with national and international acclaim said provost and executive vice president carol a fierke the honorees are scholars with careers on-track to make high-impact contributions to enhance the state and nation leading to national and international recognition grunlan is a professor and holder of the charles h and bettye barclay professorship in the department of biomedical engineering and xie is a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering grunlan received her bachelors degree in chemistry and masters in polymers and coatings from north dakota state university and her doctoral degree in chemistry from the university of southern california her current research projects focus on developing self-cleaning membranes for implanted biosensors clot-resistant coatings for blood-contacting devices and scaffolds for bone repair and for the regeneration of osteochondral interfaces xie received his bachelors degree from tsinghua university his masters degree from harvard university and his doctoral degree from carnegie mellon university his current research interests include modeling and control of large-scale complex systems smart grid applications in support of renewable energy integration and electricity markets edges fellows retain the right to use the title throughout their tenure as faculty members in good standing at texas a&m the awards join with endeavors like the presidential impact fellowships and other faculty investment programs to empower and advance the careers of faculty at every level
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about 10% of the us population has diabetes and about a third of that number around 11 million people will suffer from diabetic retinopathy diabetes-induced irreversible vision loss at some point in their lifetime people in both rural and underserved communities may suffer more because they dont have access to specialists and its likely the disease is underdiagnosed ai-ris (pronounced a-iris) a team comprised of six engineering and medical students from texas a&m university are working to address these diagnosis barriers specifically they are designing a tool to better reach individuals in rural or underserved communities
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were developing this system that leverages machine learning and also uses low-cost hardware in a user-friendly form something like a headset that can be used in a non-clinical setting and doesnt require the presence of an optometrist or ophthalmologist said tj falohun team member and biomedical engineering doctoral student uthej vattipalli civil engineering graduate student witnessed the impact of diabetic retinopathy his grandfather began to lose his eyesight after retirement but could not afford to get a diagnosis vattipalli said the teams work could transform the health care market we are going to need an army to go into what we want to do if we want that impact vattipalli said not everybody has all the skill in the world theres definitely been complementary skill sets required to get tasks accomplished one of the good things of being on an interdisciplinary team is the variety of skill sets that help you keep moving forward
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the project started as a sling health initiative sling health national network is a student-run biotechnology incubator that provides resources training and mentorship to teams of students in engineering medicine and business tackling clinical problems by developing innovative solutions the project began to gain members and motivation and spread outside of sling health into its entrepreneurship effort the team continued their work with the help of the engineering incubator at texas a&m where they worked with rodney boehm director of engineering entrepreneurship to expand their access to resources now a limited liability company llc ai-ris placed second in the 2020 sling health demo day and participated in the innovation corps site fellows program at texas a&m recently the team won a venturewell e-team grant through venturewell the team will receive funding connections and training to further their entrepreneurial efforts
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amir tofighi zavareh 19 an electrical engineering doctoral graduate said beyond making an impact he joined the team because the technical challenges involved intrigued him he said collecting the retinal images at a low cost is a challenge that is not being addressed in the market right now in the clinics they use this benchtop device that costs tens of thousands of dollars its a very tricky thing to do tofighi zavareh said we want to do that with low-cost devices so thats going to make it challenging to do that at the same quality levels but at lower costs so it can be available to rural areas
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harsha mohan a former aggie student and current graduate student studying robotics at johns hopkins university said working on a multidisciplinary team has taught members soft skills such as communicating effectively and elevating each members strengths we have people from all over the world; we have people from different backgrounds and to work toward health care equity at this point of my life im not sure theres anything better than this mohan said
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dr saurabh biswas principal investigator of venturewell grant and faculty advisor of sling health said ai-ris is a great example of a highly motivated team with complementary skill sets which biswas said is critical to solve problems in health care i truly hope other aggie innovators will follow their example and take advantage of great programs like venturewell grants sling health and nsf i-site and i-corp to bring their ideas from concept to prototype with extensive customer discovery to validate product-market fit said biswas who also serves as executive director of tees commercialization and entrepreneurship and as a professor of practice in the department of biomedical engineering
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while the team continues to delve into the world of entrepreneurship and health care integration they are already seeing how their work can play a part in treating many ocular diseases in the future marcus deayala a biotechnology graduate student said he is excited to play a part in breaking down barriers to ai diagnostics which he says will shape the landscape of health care in the future i think we all understand that in the richest country (in the world) this many people going blind by a completely avoidable disease is ridiculous deayala said if the level of health care is going to increase the cost has to come down we have to become more efficient and devices like these have to be instituted in one way or another
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when engineers fracture a shale reservoir and connect natural networks of cracks so oil and gas can flow efficiently back to the well they base their efforts on maps created by reservoir simulators since simulators often use probability to predict where these nearly invisible natural networks are one researcher from texas a&m university is eliminating the guesswork with a new method of mapping them texas a&m student researcher marcus elliott is using the odd combination of electrical currents called electromagnetics and data from tightly-focused microseismic measurements to accurately render existing natural fracture networks in shale rock his results mapped in time-lapsed 3d are more accurate and cost-efficient than current methods and they also show which direction oil and gas flows during fracturing processes this flow information is critical to engineers so they dont waste time and money fracturing an area that wont produce oil said elliott and electromagnetics is a fairly inexpensive way to get this data cities use survey crews and equipment to measure and draw complex street maps so travel pathways are clearly defined similarly reservoir simulators use measurements based on sound called seismics to illustrate the βstreets or fractures existing underground unfortunately these computer-generated maps arent accurate because natural fractures in a shale reservoir are often too small to show up clearly on seismic surveys this invisibility means the simulator must guess where these networks of tiny cracks are based on mathematical probability so when engineers fracture a reservoir to connect the natural fracture networks and allow oil and gas to travel to the well they base their efforts on guesswork elliotts initial step to clarify subsurface pathways was to create a base map of fractures in a reservoir using two different types of measurements first he broadcasted controlled-source electromagnetic (csem) waves into a reservoir receivers recorded the secondary electromagnetic wave signatures that returned to the surface any reservoir fluids that contained conductive materials such as the salt in reservoir brines reacted to these waves as if they were wires transmitting electricity revealing the underground fracture networks the fluids traveled through to the array of receivers above ground the receiver recordings were then input into an electromagnetic simulator called seatem developed by dr mark everetts group in the department of geology and geophysics at texas a&m that mapped the fluid flow pathways in the fracture networks elliott then entered microseismic measurements of fractures taken from the same reservoir into the petroleum general unconventional reservoir utility simulator (guru) developed by dr john killoughs group in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m which mapped the location of these fractures in his next step elliott used csem during an industry-induced fracturing process since the hydraulic fracturing fluids pumped into the reservoir were also conductive the surface arrays detected how the fluids traveled away from the well and back again he mapped the results in seatem and later transferred this information into guru the final depiction accurately illustrated the fracture networks while also revealing which networks allowed fluid to flow and which areas trapped fluid electromagnetics show the movement of conductive fluids in subsurface cracks no matter what their size elliott said the csem data showed how the fracture networks connected together during production and the microseismic data showed where the fracturing occurred merging this information is the key to solving inaccuracies in mapping hydraulic fracturing field patterns the idea of combining geophysics and petroleum engineering measuring methods came naturally to elliott who holds bachelors degrees in both fields he is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in petroleum engineering his advisors everett and killough are overseeing his work to make sure elliott does the best job possible many of the physics and principles are the same in both fields but combining the simulation work is complicated said elliott so far were getting a very clear understanding of whats happening in the far field away from the well elliott is currently investigating ways in which seatem can accurately map the stresses that happen when fractures form in the first section nearest the wellbore the least defined area of his simulations much of the uncertainty we have comes from not knowing whether we are actually producing from areas of the subsurface that have been fractured said elliott combining microseismic and csem data will help alleviate this uncertainty and it can solve some complex problems plus its more efficient doing a better job of describing fractures not only helps oil production but can also change how we design fractures in the future
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autonomous vehicles (av) are the wave of the future in the automobile industry and there's extensive discussion about the impacts on transportation society the economy and the environmenthowever less attention has been focused on the potential health impacts of self-driving vehiclestexas a&m university researchers have developed a conceptual model to identify these health impacts systematically they identified 32 transportation-related risk factors that affected health and concluded that 17 could negatively impact public health while eight could have a positive impact there were seven areas of uncertain implications that require further investigationthe researchers recently published their findings in the december issue of sustainable cities and society"a survey on the receptiveness of autonomous vehicles' impacts showed that there is a lack of awareness of the potential health impacts of avs and low perceptions of the importance of av health benefits " said soheil sohrabi a doctoral student in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering and a graduate researcher at the texas a&m transportation institute (tti) "on the other hand there are some unintended consequences of avs implementation that need to be studied before avs find their way onto the road"sohrabi with dr dominque lord professor in the department ap wiley faculty fellow and tti associate research scientist and dr haneen khreis with tti created a conceptual model to systematically identify the pathways through which avs can affect public health the proposed model summarizes the potential changes in transportation after av implementation into seven points of impact: transportation infrastructure; land use and the built environment; traffic flow; transportation mode choice; transportation equity; and jobs related to transportation and traffic safety the changes in transportation are then attributed to potential health impactsin optimistic views avs are expected to prevent 94% of traffic crashes by eliminating driver error but avs operation introduces new safety issues such as the potential of malfunctioning sensors in detecting objects (pedestrians bikes and cyclists vehicles obstacles etc) misinterpretation of data and poorly executed responses which can jeopardize the reliability of avs and cause serious safety consequences in an automated environmentanother possible safety consideration is the riskier behavior of users because of their overreliance on avs for example neglecting the use of seatbelts due to an increased false sense of safety
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avs have the potential to shift the people from public transportation and active transportation such as walking and biking to private vehicles in urban areas which can result in more air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and create the potential loss of driving jobs for those in the public transit or freight transport industriesthe model serves researchers in the fields of transportation engineering and urban planning as well as automotive makers health sectors and policymakers to identify the potential pathways through which avs can affect public health and to investigate the impacts quantify them and develop policies to mitigate them"given the very fast-paced research related to avs this work provides very good preliminary guidelines about how avs can negatively and positively affect the general health of people before their full deployment lord said hence engineers planners and policymakers can already examine measures and policies that could mitigate the negative health effects"this study can urge public health sectors to enter the discussion about avs and contribute to supporting policies that address the potential negative impacts " sohrabi said "it also increases the public awareness of the health impacts of avs that can facilitate the acceptance of av regulations and motivate them to use this new technology and ultimately benefit the greater good"in the future sohrabi said more research is needed to clarify public health impacts of avs more accurately this study was primarily focused on urban areas and does not take into account the affects of avs in rural areas"the discussion about the health implications of avs is new and limited " he said "next we will be working on quantifying the health implications of avs"
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the human factors and ergonomics society (hfes) student chapter at texas a&m university was bestowed with a silver chapter title under the outstanding student chapter award for the 2019-20 academic year additionally three texas a&m students from the wm michael barnes β64 department of industrial and systems engineering were recipients of the student member with honors award tamu hfes is a local chapter of the national human factors and ergonomics society maintained by students at texas a&m said hananeh alambeigi the chapter's president the goal of this organization is to promote and advance the understanding of human factors and ergonomics provide networking opportunities and facilitate discussion through an interchange of knowledge and collaboration the hfes is the worlds largest scientific association for ergonomics professionals their goal is to provide engineering solutions for people in systems through partnership and exchange of information the outstanding student chapter award was developed to highlight chapters that have positively impacted their campuses communities and human factors and ergonomics alambeigi and fellow members changwon son and jukrin moon were recipients of the 2020 student member with honors award from the national hfes for their outstanding contributions to the discipline dr mehta ranjana was an advisor during the time the students received the award dr maryam zahabi a professor in industrial and systems engineering and the new faculty advisor for the organization would like to thank the hfes members for their efforts and congratulate alambeigi son and moon for receiving this prestigious honor dr s camille peres is currently co-advisor with dr zahabi and they are both so impressed with the leaders of the student chapter of hfes at texas a&m and look forward to another great year
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ocean waves represent an abundant source of renewable energy but to best use this natural resource wave-energy converters need to be capable of physically handling ocean waves of different strengths without capsizing texas a&m university researchers have developed analytical tools that can help characterize the movements of floating but anchored wave-energy devices unlike complicated simulations that are expensive and time-consuming they said their technique is fast yet accurate enough to estimate if wave-energy devices will turn over in an ever-changing ocean environment wave-energy converters need to take advantage of large wave motions to make electricity but when a big storm comes you don't want big wave wind and current motions to destroy these devices said dr jeffrey falzarano professor in the department of ocean engineering we have developed much simpler analytical tools to judge the performance of these devices in a dynamic ocean environment without necessitating massive amounts of simulations or physical model tests that take a lot of time to run and are cost-prohibitive the mathematical tools are described online in the journal ships and offshore structures in july wave-energy devices function in two modes in normal" mode they convert the energy from tidal waves into electricity thus this mode largely determines whether the design of the wave-energy device is economically efficient however in survival mode or when incident waves cause large motions in the wave-energy devices the performance of the wave-energy devices is largely determined by a system of moorings that anchor the devices to a location at the bottom of the body of water moorings can be of several types including wharfs and anchor buoys and can be arranged in different configurations in addition there are considerable variations in the shape of wave-energy devices making the prediction of whether the device will capsize nontrivial ships come in a variety of shapes and sizes; tankers for example are very different from fishing vessels or other military ships these different geometries affect the ships motion in the water said falzarano similarly the shape of wave-energy devices can be quite diverse
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for the analysis hao wang falzarano s graduate student used a cylindrical wave-energy device this generic shape allowed the researchers to simplify the problem of prediction and extended their analysis to other wave-energy converters of similar shape he also considered three mooring configurations hao used two analytical methods the markov and melnikov approaches to predict the risks of turning over under random excitation more specifically using information from the wave-energy devices geometry the configuration of the mooring system and tidal wave properties the methods yield a graph containing an envelope-like region intuitively if the waves are really big like during a storm and the floating vessel escapes this envelope it will likely turnover the researchers noted that although the analytical models were completely different they yielded almost the same results validating their merit and accuracy they also said that their mathematical approach can be applied to assess the performance of other floating devices such as floating wind turbines the platform for a floating wind turbine is the same as the one for wave-energy devices and so floating turbines can also pitchpole or turnover if the waves are very high said falzarano my group has been leaders in developing methods for predicting ship stability we're now looking at applying those approaches to renewable floating energy devices
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for the second year in a row a survey by bankrate a leader and authority in the financial industry has ranked naval architecture and marine engineering as the most valuable majors with a median salary of $90 000 and an unemployment rate of 16% with such importance placed on naval architecture as a specialty within ocean engineering the question follows: what exactly is it dr jeffrey falzarano professor in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university has the answer here are the top five things you need to know about naval architecture
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1 its been around for thousands of years naval architecture a specialization offered in the in the ocean engineering department is one of the oldest engineering disciplines dating all the way back to the first manmade raft and canoe as falzarano explained since the grecian times of archimedes scientists were not only creating floating crafts but studying the buoyancy and stability of them as well while it wasnt called such until more recent years naval architecture tasks people with creating some of the largest (up to 1 500 feet in length) and most complex moving manmade crafts and systems like oil tankers nuclear submarines and cargo ships
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2 it isnt just about military ships despite how its name might sound naval architecture is not solely focused on designing ships for the navy while that is one aspect naval architecture is the science of designing boats ships and other floating structures such as aquaculture habitats this includes cruise ships cargo carriers personal speed boats and jet skis while many engineers do work on navy ships and underwater military crafts the field of ocean engineering and naval architecture is broad anything that floats in the water is something that needs naval architects and marine engineers said falzarano one of my areas for example is ship maneuvering when you drive a car you want to make sure it responds well it has to turn when you want it to right when you drive a ship it has to respond correctly and like cars sometimes collisions happen why what went wrong
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3 it puts the ship in shipment i think there's literally tens of thousands of large commercial ships sailing the ocean as we speak tankers container ships said falzarano globalization makes opportunities because shipping makes opportunities someone makes a product in one country and they want it in another and you have trade and people dont think about naval architecture when they think about shipping but according to the organisation for economic co-operation and development around 90% of traded goods are carried via the ocean sea-based shipment only represents 26% of total greenhouse emissions making it cleaner than most other transport options
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4 it is an international and multi-industrial field from shipping to submarines to luxury and leisure the need for experts who can not only design a floating vehicle but adhere to the international policies and regulations that govern the safety of those vehicles is imperative global organizations have been founded drawing upon the expertise of a wide range of industries to determine how to protect those aboard floating vessels it is up to naval architects and marine engineers to understand abide and strive to better these regulations through innovation and ingenuity additionally as falzarano described because naval architecture is a global industry through trade building cruise tourism personal water transportation etc there are many facets for naval architects to find their niche in the field and see the world
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5 its continuing to grow and evolve there will always be a need for people to do this said falzarano with the evolution and implementation of new technology to the discipline such as unmanned robotic vehicles and clean energy solutions naval architecture is continuing to grow and transform the world there are wind turbines out in west texas but the real potential is offshore energy because the wind is even stronger offshore and the waves have much more energy in them than wind said falzarano my point is whether it's a ship a renewable energy device an oil and gas platform or another floating structure they all kind of behave the same way with a hand in connecting cultures and continents bridging industries and ideas and bringing together people and products there is still lots of ground to cover
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the department of ocean engineering offers a specialization in naval architecture at both its flagship college station and its seaside galveston campus this unique duel campus setup gives the department access to both world-class research facilities and direct access to the water and coast offering students a hands-on research and education experience like no other learn more about the ocean engineering degree programs offered at each campus
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dr bimal nepal professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university has been selected to receive the 2020 american society for engineering management (asem) william daughton world headquarters service award asem is a global professional society dedicated to the promotion and advancement of the engineering and technical management profession the william daughton world headquarters service award recognizes significant contributions to the streamlining enhancement or improvement of the day-to-day operations of asem world headquarters nepal has held several leadership roles within asem including elected fellow conference technical chair board of directors member and associate editor of their flagship journal engineering management journal he is currently serving as interim director for asem professional societies outreach i am truly humbled and honored to receive such a distinguished honor from asem said nepal it keeps me even more motivated to serve the society to broaden its mission and contribute to the profession of engineering management i would like to thank the honors and awards committee within asem for their trust in me his previous awards include the holleran-bowman faculty fellow the phillips 66 first-year faculty fellow the william keeler memorial award the herbert h richardson fellow and the corrie and jim furber '64 faculty fellow nepal joined the texas a&m faculty in 2009 he received his doctoral degree from wayne state university a masters degree from the asian institute of technology and a bachelors degree from the malaviya national institute of technology
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with the intensity of the ongoing climate change debate scientists and engineers are looking for cleaner energy sources to replace fossil fuels nuclear energy is one such possibility but innovations are being sought to enhance the promise of clean nuclear energy a team from texas a&m university has established a collaboration to explore the potential of an innovative new type of thorium-based fuel researchers in the nuclear engineering and science center (nesc) at texas a&m and the us department of energys (doe) idaho national laboratory (inl) have partnered with clean core thorium energy (ccte) a chicago-based company to fabricate a proprietary thorium-based nuclear fuel called advanced nuclear energy for enriched life (aneel) this fuel is a combination of thorium and high-assay low-enriched uranium and addresses issues including cost safety proliferation and waste management texas a&m will manufacture the aneel fuel pellets at the nesc following the strict guidelines and quality assurance requirements of the doe and nuclear regulatory commission they will then send fabricated aneel fuel pellets to inl to conduct high burn-up irradiation testing of aneel fuel followed by post-irradiation examination and fuel qualification we are excited for the opportunity to be part of the aneel fuel development to work with our colleagues at inl and ccte to realize a safe and clean baseload energy solution for the world said dr sean mcdeavitt director of the nesc for years researchers have been investigating new ways to make nuclear energy often looking at new types of nuclear power plants however due to the high cost of full-scale demonstrations lengthy irradiation and performance testing and regulatory limitations most of these new nuclear technologies are still decades away from realization despite these challenges nuclear energy is still one of the largest sources of emission-free power in the world generating nearly a fifth of americas electricity and more than half of its clean energy moreover nuclear energy is an abundant clean energy source that can deliver baseload electricity that is needed most in emerging markets
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the texas a&m/inl/ccte team is addressing nuclear energy from a different angle by delivering optimal performance in existing heavy water reactor designs with proven competitive performance the new aneel fuel breaks barriers for fuel utilization safety and proliferation resistance necessary to lower the hurdles to deploy nuclear energy when used in small heavy water reactors aneel fuel is ideal for deployment to emerging countries where the need for additional clean energy is most urgent two such existing heavy water reactors are the canada deuterium uranium (candu) and the pressurized heavy water reactor (phwr) these reactors are heavy water-cooled and moderated pressurized water reactors where the nuclear core is contained in hundreds of pressurized tubes they usually employ natural uranium oxide as fuel with heavy water as the moderator (a material used in a nuclear reactor to slow down the neutrons produced from fission) the team feels it is beneficial to use existing reactor technology to minimize the cost and avoid decades-long regulatory hurdles for deployment there are currently 49 operating phwr/candu reactors in seven countries including canada argentina india and china using thorium as the main ingredient also has many advantages in these existing reactors with its higher melting point and lower internal operating temperature thorium is inherently safer than uranium making a core meltdown less likely due to the higher fuel burn-up possible with aneel waste is decreased substantially higher fuel burn-up also means more uranium and plutonium are burned to make energy while the end product is significantly denatured reducing the possible proliferation of the used fuel thorium is also found more abundantly than uranium on earth and can be extracted readily from seawater making it a renewable energy source with this collaboration aneel-fueled phwrs/candus could provide abundant safe and clean energy in order to build a path to development and dignity for emerging nations said mehul shah founder and ceo of ccte
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beth gibson coyle '82 has established the harry m coyle sr & harry m "michael" coyle jr '82 endowed scholarship distributions from this generous endowment will be used to provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing pursuing an undergraduate degree in civil engineering at texas a&m university coyle grew up in bryan and started attending texas a&m sports events when she was very young she says she was firmly set on attending texas a&m upon graduating from bryan high school i majored in journalism focused on photography and was able to work with the battalion not only as a photographer but as a writer and editor during my years at a&m she said i also worked at the media production center in the photography lab i love texas a&m having grown up here in the atmosphere of a college town and having my degree from a&m coyle said the education provided at a&m is second to none not only with academics but with character and integrity the six core values of this university sets it apart since graduating coyle has had great success throughout her professional life i have taught journalism and photography at the high school level acted as ceo and handled marketing for mine and my late husband's civil engineering firm for 20 years and i am now working as a commercial photographer working with companies to assist with marketing and portfolio images coyle established this endowment in memory of both her late husband mike and his father dr harry m coyle both men were award-winning engineers in practice or in teaching and research mike passed away at age 52 in 2013 in an accident and harry passed away a few years later at 90 the world lost two amazing men and talented engineers she said each sought to mentor young engineers to love the profession and to use it for the betterment of this world like they did mike and beth founded their civil engineering firm coyle engineering in 1995 mike was one of only nine engineers in the state of texas to have been selected young engineer of the year and engineer of the year after spending four months in the field helping underfunded counties rebuild following hurricane ike harry coyle was head of the geotechnical group at texas a&m and taught upper-level courses in soil mechanics he performed valuable research for the university dr coyle was a west point graduate and served in korea with the corps of engineers he received his masters from the massachusetts institute of technology and doctorate from the university of texas at austin both men loved what the lord made them to do and i picture them continuing to engineer in heaven i miss them both terribly coyle hopes that this gift will grow and that mike's siblings will also have the chance to add to the endowment to honor the memory of their dad and brother it is my hope that this gift will not only help a young engineering student to continue in his or her studies with a degree in civil engineering from texas a&m but also will encourage him or her to know more about the two men the scholarship honors and seek to be like them in life and in the civil engineering profession she said an engineering degree from texas a&m is quite meaningful in the design industry coyle said
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the college of engineering is one of the leading engineering programs in the united states ranking first in undergraduate enrollment and ninth in graduate enrollment endowments supporting the students in the college have an immeasurable impact on their education if you are interested in supporting the college of engineering and its departments or would like more information on how you can give please contact true brown director of development
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dr swaroop darbha is now holder of the gulf oil/thomas a dietz professorship darbha a professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering joined texas a&m university in 1997 he is currently conducting research on the robust synthesis of complex networks with los alamos national laboratory motion planning and coordination of unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned ground vehicles with air force research laboratory and army research laboratory and developing diagnostic systems for air brakes in autonomous and connected trucks with texas a&m transportation institute "i am delighted to be appointed the gulf oil/thomas a dietz professor and will continue to perform basic and applied research in the area of autonomous vehicles with renewed vigor " darbha said darbha whose research has been cited more than 8 000 times is a fellow of the american society of mechanical engineers and the institute of electrical and electronics engineers and is known for his fundamental contributions in the areas of intelligent transportation systems and unmanned aerial vehicles
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three faculty members have joined the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university with research expertise in areas such as empirical software engineering practices artificial intelligence and big data systems with the ever-increasing role and impact of computing in society our field faces significant competition for talent from both industry and academia we are excited to have such promising faculty join us said dr scott schaefer head of the department the three new faculty members include:
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dr khanh nguyen assistant professor who received his doctoral degree in computer science from the university of california los angeles and his masters and bachelors degrees in computer science from the university of california irvine nguyens research interests include complier and runtime support programming languages memory management and big data systems dr paule taele instructional assistant professor who received his doctoral and masters degrees in computer science from texas a&m and his bachelors degrees in mathematics and computer science from the university of texas at austin taeles research interests include sketch recognition artificial intelligence human-computer interaction and intelligent user interfacespauline wade associate professor of practice who received her masters degree in computer science from columbia university and her bachelors degree in computer science from texas a&m wades research interests include empirical software engineering practices software engineering framework for data science projects and improving the effectiveness of test suites through mining historical data
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before he was a student at texas a&m university sam williams knew that above anything else he loved to work with his hands even helping with his uncles painting and remodeling work at the age of 5 that love grew into a desire to attend engineering school which led williams to attend texas a&m and create his own legacy as one of the first black engineering students and athletes in the schools history while a junior in high school i was sitting in (my dads) office discussing colleges and he asked me βwhat about a&m williams said i applied and got accepted i didn't know that i was going to be one of the first students to attend texas a&m as an african-american williams started as a student at texas a&m in 1964 during james earl rudders tenure as president of the university at that time the corps of cadets was still a compulsory part of enrollment for all texas a&m students williams who had attended an all-black high school didnt know what to expect of texas a&m or the military-school lifestyle in high school i was one of the so-called βbig man on campus types and then i got to a&m in the corps and it was totally different williams said you couldn't leave or go home without a pass and i said to myself βwhat have i gotten myself into as a student williams struggled balancing the rigors of cadet life working to make the track team and being an engineering student he eventually quit the corps when it was no longer compulsory just as he was leaving the corps williams suffered a difficult blow to his engineering career the assistant dean of engineering cliff ransdell felt his struggling academic performance wasnt strong enough to let him stay enrolled that was the most difficult time of my life williams said i came back home to houston and (my parents) explained to me that i wasnt going to go sit around on my butt in this house so i enrolled in a technical school not one to quit easily williams later made an appointment with ransdell to show him his outstanding academic performance in technical school ransdell having taught williams in his engineering graphics class decided to give him one more chance as an engineering student after he returned he was accepted into the industrial technology program i started really focusing on industrial technology williams said it was kind of right up my alley it prepared (me) to be in management in manufacturing field services and technical sales
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joining the football team with his roommate jt reynolds shortly after coming back to campus the two would go on to pass yet another milestone as the first black football players and lettermen at texas a&m in 1967 and 1968 for williams this wasnt his first attempt to play on the field years earlier he had suited up for freshman practice only to be told by head coach hank foldberg that texas a&m would not be integrating its football teams even after triumphantly surviving a difficult conditioning weed-out process williams and reynolds never traveled and only played sparingly in home games after leaving texas a&m in 1969 williams severed most ties with the school and began a successful career with general electric (ge) as a sales engineer and contract administrator he later moved to houston and left ge eventually going into business for himself as the ceo of a small manufacturing and engineering consulting service i had very little connection with a&m in my early career williams said i didnt care it was a difficult time that i went through at a&m and when i walked out of there it didnt matter when i ever came back after his business closed williams found an unlikely tie back to texas a&m a chance visit with a fellow former student provided him with an invitation to a texas a&m networking breakfast the connections he fostered there helped him return to the corporate world where he spent 21 years as the senior representative at emersons subsidiaries automatic switch & asco services inc after reconnecting with the texas a&m network williams later came into contact with former texas a&m university president bill mobley after visiting campus at mobleys invitation in 1989 to discuss racial issues in education with other black former students williams received an invitation to co-chair the presidents former student advisory committee on black issues williams served on the committee until 1993 williams later co-founded the caring aggies mentor program in 2006 which mentors students from third grade through high school and introduces them to career opportunities while encouraging them to complete high school and pursue higher education many of the programs graduates have gone on to college and trade schools including texas a&m from first-hand experience williams knows how one act of caring can change someones life i will always be thankful for dean ransdell williams said he was the one person that let me back into a&m to restart my academic career and i will never forget that
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dr matt pharr assistant professor in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university takes his place among less than 300 faculty members in 30 years as a montague-cte (center for teaching excellence) scholars award recipient for his achievements in teaching undergraduate students according to pharr his dedication to teaching stems from his enjoyment of working in the classroom i enjoy interacting with students particularly with the energy they bring to class pharr said it is fun to hear students ask questions and come up with new solutions from perspectives that i have not considered before it's also very rewarding when students come to that "aha moment" through lectures and discussion this award is given to only one tenure-track assistant professor from each college annually along with the title of being a montague-cte scholar he will receive a grant to continue making positive impacts in the classroom i am honored to receive this award said pharr it will provide me the opportunity to continue to develop augmented and virtual reality learning modules with a goal of enhancing student engagement and understanding course content to greater depths pharrs teaching philosophy centers around fundamental principles by teaching students about the larger picture he can educate them on solving real-world issues based on his personal experiences as a student a critical part of this is assigning projects that accentuate mechanical engineerings key principles and perpetuate student involvement i implement approaches that i personally found effective as a student encouraging creative thinking and cultivating an enjoyable learning environment pharr said to that end i like to keep students engaged by asking questions frequently during lectures doing demonstrations showing videos having students work through example problems with their neighbors etc the montague-cte scholars award adds to his list of accolades that include the peggy l and charles brittan 65 outstanding undergraduate teaching award in 2019 and the center for teaching excellence - texas a&m student success faculty fellows grant program in 2017
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one challenge of the covid-19 pandemic has been monitoring cases in places with high amounts of foot traffic a team of students from the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university is working on a biosensor that could quickly diagnose cases and help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus the aerosol pathogen sensor team was selected for the national science foundations i-corps site program at texas a&m to gain resources and assistance with moving their design past the concept phase their biosensor is designed to detect airborne pathogenic particles relating to covid-19 to help diagnose a case within 20 minutes originally the team felt the project could have applications in a variety of industries including grocery stores health care offices etc after completing their interviews their focus was narrowed to hospitals private practices and retirement homes
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the team first came together to participate in the aggies against covid challenge in april they also participated in the "tracking covid-19" challenge from the new york academy of science where they competed in a global challenge assisting in the tracking of covid-19 there they placed in the top 10 teams worldwide out of about 100 teams that competed and were invited to pitch their idea to judges in a virtual pitch setting over the summer theres a lot of people suffering from the covid crisis a lot of people dying and i wanted to help however i could said junior ryan bean i didnt want to just sit there and watch as people were dying and being isolated i wanted to try my best to mitigate the crisis as best as possible
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the device addresses two needs: it provides more accurate and available testing to people in high traffic areas and it provides the centers for disease control and prevention with more accurate and in-depth data as fellows in the i-corps program the team conducted 35 industry interviews and 400 consumer interviews to gauge reaction interest and feedback on their proposed biosensor the team said they received lots of positive feedback especially since their device is noninvasive more accurate and reusable
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the program really helped narrow down if we wanted to go forward with our project or not said junior haley clark it was extremely useful for us because it gave us that entrepreneurship mindset and the business side versus just strictly engineering which we had from our classes junior hannah chamberlain said her biggest takeaway from the i-corps program has been the entrepreneurial skills she gained i had never wanted to make a product or start a business because i have no idea how to do it she said (the program) really teaches you how to gauge needs from an industry and then create your device based off those needs
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while their time in the i-corps program is complete the team said innovation is never done they are looking into ways to continue moving forward including getting into a research lab and working with the engineering incubator at texas a&m the applications for it truly are pretty numerous once we get it going said junior zach mendoza what were working on can be applied across all infectious diseases of course thats very broad and far in the future but the fact that weve gotten this far and been this successful gives me a lot of hope
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jon williamson 20 received the most prestigious honor available to a graduating senior Βfrom the college of engineering at texas a&m university β the craig c brown outstanding senior engineer award the award which is over 70 years old is presented to a student who excels scholastically who exemplifies leadership and whose character exceeds standards my experience at texas a&m has been transformational said williamson i have grown as a mechanical engineer a computer scientist a leader and as a human over the last four and a half years a zealous student from colorado williamson felt immediately connected to texas a&ms core values and long-standing traditions he chose the difficult path of pursuing mechanical engineering and computer science degrees simultaneously due to his interests in multiple fields i love the pure analytical nature of engineering said williamson i see math everywhere: when i walk to class when i review current events and when im relaxing engineering allows me to apply robust and often enlightening analytical tools to any situation in december williamson will graduate with 218 credit hours instead of the typical 128 in just four and a half years of study he is on track to graduate summa cum laude with an honors fellows distinction he has participated in multiple engineering projects from custom art tools to football helmets that can help diagnose and report concussions he showed outstanding leadership through his involvement in the memorial student center he oversaw the planning funding and execution of tedxtamu in 2018 which is an independently-run ted conference held here on the texas a&m campus this resulted in the memorial student center investing heavily into the tedxtamu program williamson is also a member of the texas a&m chamber orchestra when not in school he has had several unique internships including working for bhp engineering & construction lp as a field engineer intern within surface engineering as a defense service engineer for rolls-royce and as a summer associate for the boston consulting group this is only a few of the accomplishments and contributions williamson has achieved while attending texas a&m along williamson's impressive journey many faculty members have helped paved his way jon is an outstanding student with natural scientific curiosity and is clearly deserving of this award said dr matt pharr assistant professor in the mechanical engineering department it is obvious to me that he is interested in taking scientific concepts and applying them to do good in the world i almost expect to see his name in the news sometime for his accomplishments williamson would like to acknowledge those who have helped him pursue his goals and led him to receive this award dr zohaib hasnain and dr aakash tyagi supported my application for this award said williamson other faculty members that mentored me throughout my time at texas a&m include dr dmitri loguinov dr matt pharr dr dale cope and dr shawna thomas i was lucky to take courses from each of these professors; each one challenged me and pushed me to become a better engineer the generous support of many donors notably mr brown through the craig and galen brown foundation scholarship programs and mrs carolyn lohman through the presidents endowed scholar program allowed me to pursue both degrees concurrently said williamson williamson will graduate in december leaving texas a&m to do fantastic things in the future he plans to use engineering to impact the lives of many i hope to make an impact through autonomous systems as an engineer in the future said williamson i believe that autonomous systems particularly transportation systems have the potential to drastically increase societys efficiency and safety i am excited to help society shift through shorter more robust supply chains and decreased amounts of material and energy waste
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our environment is swarming with all kinds of microbes the ones that cause harm have a few tricks up their sleeve they can either attach to receptors on host cells or produce toxins or disrupt the hosts cellular machinery to develop effective therapeutics against pathogens scientists need to first uncover how they attack host cells an efficient way to conduct these investigations on an extensive scale is through high-speed screening tests called assays in that effort researchers at texas a&m university have invented a high-throughput cell separation method that can be used in conjunction with droplet microfluidics a technique whereby tiny drops of fluid containing biological or other cargo can be moved very precisely and at high speeds specifically the researchers successfully isolated pathogens attached to host cells from those that were unattached within a single fluid droplet using an electric field other than cell separation most biochemical assays have been successfully converted into droplet microfluidic systems that allow high-throughput testing said dr arum han professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and principal investigator of the project we have addressed that gap and now cell separation can be done in a high-throughput manner within the droplet microfluidic platform this new system certainly simplifies studying host-pathogen interactions but it is also very useful for environmental microbiology or drug screening applications the researchers reported their findings in the august issue of the journal lab on a chip microfluidic devices consist of networks of micron-sized channels or tubes that allow very controlled movements of fluids recently microfluidics using water-in-oil droplets have gained popularity for a wide range of biotechnological applications these droplets which are picoliters (or a million times less than a microliter) in volume can be used as platforms for carrying out biological reactions or transporting biological materials thus millions of droplets within a single chip facilitate high-throughput experiments saving not just laboratory space but the cost of chemical reagents and manual labor however much like a packet of m&ms biological assays can involve different cell types within a single droplet which eventually need to be separated for subsequent analyses this task is extremely challenging in a droplet microfluidic system said han getting cell separation within a tiny droplet is extremely difficult because if you think about it first its a tiny hundred-micron diameter droplet and second within this extremely tiny droplet multiple cell types are all mixed together he said to develop the technology needed for cell separation han and his team chose a host-pathogen model system consisting of the salmonella bacteria and the human macrophage a type of immune cell when both these cell types are introduced within a droplet some of the bacteria adhere to the macrophage cells the goal of their experiments was thus to separate the salmonella that attached to the macrophage from the ones that did not for cell separation han and his team constructed two pairs of electrodes that generated an oscillating electric field in close proximity to the droplet containing the two cell types since the bacteria and the host cells have very different shapes sizes and electrical properties they found that the electric field produced a different force on each cell type this force resulted in the movement of one cell type at a time thereby separating the cells into two different locations within the droplet to separate the mother droplet into two daughter droplets containing one type of cells the researchers also made a downstream y-shaped splitting junction
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han said although these experiments were carried with a host and pathogen whose interaction is well-established their new microfluidic system equipped with in-drop separation is most useful when the pathogenicity of bacterial species is unknown he added that their technology enables quick high-throughput screening in these situations and for other applications where cell separation is required liquid handling robotic hands can conduct millions of assays but are extremely costly droplet microfluidics can do the same in millions of droplets much faster and much cheaper said han we have now integrated cell separation technology into droplet microfluidic systems allowing the precise manipulation of cells in droplets in a high-throughput manner which was not possible before this work is funded by the defense advanced research projects agency dr song-i han and can huang from the electrical and computer engineering department equally contributed to this research
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set to help further accelerate the digital transformation of the energy industry the texas a&m university student-led company teale engineering llc has been recently accepted into the national nsf i-corps teams program β a true testament of their abilities the nsf i-corps site program is one that provides students with the foundational elements to take an innovation and discover the market potential of the production while moving their ideas toward commercialization the company includes students enrique losoyam pursuing his doctoral degree in interdisciplinary engineering narendra vishnumolakala pursuing his doctoral degree in interdisciplinary engineering and connor ust pursing his masters degree in engineering technology the team formed after discovering one another during the aggies invent β energy solutions competition in 2019 and have since founded their company after joining texas a&ms nsf i-corps site program together our team came together mostly by chance losoya said although we did not win that aggies invent competition we realized that we worked well together and had skills that could complement one anothers and shortly after formed our company teale engineering llc the company decided to focus on the energy sector as it faces a key challenge in meeting the growing demand for energy in a safe and environmentally responsible manner teale engineering llc strives to bridge this gap by leveraging advanced technologies and innovations
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therefore their immediate hope in this program was to interact with experts and customers in the industry to discover if the technology they are developing provides a solution to an actual problem faced in the energy sector today the team has been working on the research topic for years within texas a&m and the idea was born after brainstorming ideas from different multidisciplinary perspectives and experiences they realized that for decades one of the industry's most critical technological limiters in drilling optimization for the oil industry is the inability to transmit large amounts of data from the downhole and processing it on the surface their solution eliminates the need to transfer large amounts of data altogether by performing most of the processing directly at the drill bit in short we're building the fastest most powerful and intelligent downhole tool ever created for the next generation of drilling technology that can identify optimize and potentially control drilling operations vishnumolakala said we applied the lean launch methodology to the customer discovery process to identify the target market which helped us by opening up new market opportunities for the tool such as the geothermal drilling industry brian rogers the companys mentor through the nsf i-corps site program was initially excited about the product because it was forward thinking rogers had just finished a rotation on a drilling rig and found that his direct experience provided unique insight to the possibilities that this product could bring when teale engineering llc approached me with assisting them on their product it was clearly a next-generation product we could apply to the rig systems design basis rogers said we finished our coaching session with a robust risk assessment one that incorporated customer feedback and industry return on experience subsequently leading to a prototype product development in the next nsf i-corps site program phase it was through nsf i-corps site program mentor rodney boehm that the team found courage to apply for the national program by providing a strong recommendation and believing in themselves and their product one of the most important takeaways during the program was realizing how powerful the aggie network is but more importantly how extremely helpful and altruistic people can be losoya said we were shocked to find out how helpful and accessible people can be the team has found that the program grew them both professionally and personally providing an immersive experience that heightened their interpersonal communication and professional business skills most importantly ust realized the value of industry feedback it was difficult at first to have a project you care so much about be critiqued and criticized until i realized how to use the feedback to our advantage ust said as the team continues to evolve their product with the national nsf i-corps teams program the company hopes to prove that the product's technical and economic feasibility will benefit automating the drilling operations and open up avenues for implementing the technology in other aspects of process optimization
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dr matt pharr has been named a j mike walker β66 faculty fellow pharr assistant professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering joined texas a&m university in 2016 his current research focuses on materials for energy storage and conversion deformation and fracture of soft materials the mechanics of flexible and wearable electronic devices the mechanics of irradiated materials coupled electro-chemo-mechanics and mass transport in materials dr pharr demonstrates a genuine and impressive commitment to the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering his research and the education of future leaders " said dr andreas a polycarpou mechanical engineering department head and james j cain chair professor "we are fortunate to have him as a part of our faculty and look forward to further accomplishments in the future he is well deserving of the j mike walker 66 faculty fellow title pharr a recipient of the 2020 national science foundation faculty early career development award said he is honored to receive the fellowship and is deeply grateful to the walker family for their support "the fellowship will allow me to pursue some new ideas for research in mechanics of materials establish new collaborations and develop augmented and virtual reality learning modules to enhance student learning experiences " said pharr
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dr rusty feagin professor in the department of ecology and conservation biology and the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university was recently awarded the robert g dean coastal academic award from the american shore and beach preservation association (asbpa) feagin received this honor for his significant contributions to coastal science and his mentorship of the next generation of coastal scientists and engineers feagins research centers on how living materials like plants and microflora affect the processes of coastal erosion he teaches classes like coastal processes and ecosystem management wetlands and riverine restoration among others that are attended by students from multiple majors i enjoy mentoring grad students because its more one-on-one and its a bigger time investment feagin said over several years you really get to know someone and what makes them tick and it gives you enough time to learn where they are strong in science and how to help them best apply themselves one of feagins current projects involves the creation of a living shoreline by building several miles of an oyster reef in carancahua bay a northern extension of matagorda bay on the texas coast to reduce waves and decrease erosion while also increasing habitat for fish and other species in the environment were trying to figure out ways that we can stop the erosion but also increase the number of fish and the overall environment for fishing and hunting so that we can help the local economy feagin said the asbpa founded in 1926 to combat the effects of coastal erosion with science and lobbying for government policy change bestows multiple special awards each year upon individuals and coastal projects for their contributions to their mission the robert g dean award recognizes individuals in academia that have made significant contributions to coastal science or engineering and fostered the education of new coastal scientists or engineers feagin was nominated for this award by one of his colleagues cris weber a senior managing coastal engineer at anchor qea a science and engineering firm he also received multiple letters of support from students former students and other colleagues for the honor
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the aggie 100 summit award established in 2012 by the mcferrin center for entrepreneurship seeks to highlight an aggie-owned and led business with the highest average revenue over the same three-year-period the recipient of this years award is srs distribution led by dan tinker 96 tinker has had many notable mentors and confidants who have helped to support him throughout his career now as the president and ceo of srs distribution tinker wants to provide the same support structure for his employees tinker graduated in may of 1996 with a degree in industrial distribution from the texas a&m university college of engineering he credits the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution for having a major impact on his career and success it prepared me really well for leadership and for managing people and leading teams he said tinker went on to describe how the industrial distribution program provided him with a strong technical background while at the same time providing holistic business education from finance to strategy to operations it gave him a well-rounded view of how engineering and business can be used together as a powerful tool tinker is a visionary who fully embraces the entrepreneurial mindset of dream big be bold he isnt intimidated by hard work and thrives whenever he faces a problem that seems insurmountable throughout his career hes lived by the adage of small goals dont stir peoples souls tinker has learned firsthand that when you challenge yourself and your team to achieve impossible milestones that is when the magic happens it hasnt been an easy lesson to learn and along the way people have doubted him i dont know if anyone but me early on believed that we were going to achieve what i told them we were going to go do said tinker time and time again hes proven that theres no value in shying away from your passions and goals its only when you are all in and fully committed to your dreams that you can convince others to do the same for tinker the best way to encourage others to buy into goals is by fostering strong company culture he wants to hire talented people and inspire passion in them by creating a corporate environment that makes them excited to go to work every day i want people to get a speeding ticket on the way to work not on the way home from work you have to create the right environment to make that happen he said i believe talent trumps strategy every time but the talent is wasted if theyre not engaged and fully passionate about the work theyre doing the vision of the company and the mission of the company have you ever seen a company with good customer service but bad morale it doesnt exist you cant do it tinker engages his highly talented employees by actively living the aggie values of respect and selfless service we want to bring talent here and build wonderful careers for people and change their lives for the better he said you end up serving them as ceo im the lowest person in the company and my job is to serve everyone above me the front-line employees who serve the customer are at the top for tinker ceo stands for chief excuse elimination officer he believes that his most important role is to eliminate all obstacles and provide all of the resources that their people need to succeed thats my job he said i want 5 500 people to come to work that are smarter than me and harder working than me and as a result they drive the business and i provide them all of the resources and the environment for them to thrive and have fun that commitment to culture is evident in the srs distribution mission statement: make money have fun give back weve chosen to be a people-first and a culture-led company and a big part of that is a dedication to others and service to others tinker said how do you inspire an employee workforce of several thousand individuals for tinker its simple the way you do that in our mindset is to let (our employees) be the entrepreneur he said he wants his team to take ownership of their role in the company and let them be the strategist locally tinker wants his team to know that their input and decision-making skills are valued by the company and that they are trusted by leadership to make calls independent of the corporate mandate rather than trying to force a cookie-cutter approach on their 390 locations srs distribution instead provides centralized tools and resources such as technology support and talent management and encourages their employees to leverage an entrepreneurial mindset all of our employees think of themselves as owners and founders of the company he said they have a different level of pride and engagement this commitment to employee empowerment and success is evident through the srs distribution employee shareholder program all 5 500 employees have some sort of equity in the company every time weve sold the company or had a liquidity event every employee stockholder got a payout in fact weve already made over 115 millionaires in the company from the employees and my goal is to make hundreds more in the next five years we have a warehouse worker in portland who makes $18 an hour and is already a millionaire because of his small investment in the company in 2008 said tinker thats the fun part you can have great financial success and not keep it all at the top you can share it broadly if you have the right structure and right equity program for an aggie entrepreneur who is so fiercely passionate about selfless service and supporting the goals and dreams of others it would be remiss not to include recognition of the individuals who have played a major role in supporting tinkers career the most notable champion for tinkers career is his wife audrey tinker 96 my wife is the smart one in the family she has her phd masters and undergrad degrees all from a&m and has taught at a&m all i know is how to sell stuff for more than i paid for it shes the real brains of the family said tinker the two met freshman year in college and have been together ever since she played a huge role in his career since tinkers first job out of college at the ripe age of 22 tinker was able to convince the leadership at cameron ashley building products to promote him to the branch manager it was a hard sell but they did give me the worst branch in the company which was in little rock audrey agreed to uproot her life in texas to move to arkansas so that tinker could pursue his career in just one year tinker turned that branch from dead worst to branch-of-the-year out of 165 locations during his time reinvigorating the little rock branch tinker experienced tremendous growth as a leader he learned how to motivate his team to be passionate about their work he discovered the impact that a talented experienced employee can have on a teams morale and a businesss bottom line tinker distinguished himself as a force in little rock it wouldnt have happened without audrey by his side another individual who was monumental in supporting tinker is ronald ross chairman of the board at srs distribution tinker met ross while he was a student at texas a&m and ross was serving on the advisory board for the of industrial distribution department for over two decades ross has served as a mentor and fount of wisdom for tinker we have a great friendship i consider him to be a second father to me he was a mentor right out of college and taught me how to acquire businesses how to value companies and the operations of the business as well said tinker ross was responsible for hiring tinker at cameron ashley building products he is also a co-founder of srs distribution alongside tinker it started with buying a small bankrupt company in florida that only had six locations and 30 million in sales in the past 12-and-a-half years weve done 84 acquisitions 133 greenfield new openings and our sales are now approaching $4 billion rosss wisdom leadership and mentorship have been integral to the leader that tinker is today tinker is a living example of how the education and values provided by texas a&m can serve as a springboard for success but the greatest lesson that can be learned from the story of the 2020 summit award recipient is that when you treat people with respect and invite them to be a part of your dreams great things can and will happen
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dr edgar sanchez-sinencio ti jack kilby chair professor and distinguished professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university passed away on nov 20 2020 sanchez-sinencio had been a professor and researcher in the college of engineering since 1984 and leaves behind a legacy of selfless service extraordinary leadership generosity and respect he was an unwavering supporter of the department college and the university as well as his fellow faculty and current and former students this year he made arrangements to create a number of scholarships to maintain and enhance the future of young researchers in analog and hybrid electronics in addition with generous help and support of his friends and former students sanchez-sinencio created the edgar sanchez-sinencio and yolanda f de sanchez chair which will be used to support the teaching research service and professional development activities of the holder edgar is no longer with us but his storied career and legacy created through the success of his research and careers of his students as well as the new endowments in support of the young researchers will continue to feed the future successes and preeminence of texas a&m that edgar was an essential part of said dr miroslav begovic department head and college of engineering excellence professor sanchez-sinencio was the director of the analog and mixed-signal center and co-author of six books on different topics such as radio-frequency (rf) circuits low-voltage low-power analog circuits and neural networks his interests included the area of ultra-low power analog circuits rf circuits harvesting techniques power management and medical electronics circuit design his exemplary and inspired research in analog and hybrid microelectronics has found fertile ground for applications in some of the major us corporations which gladly employed his students supported his research and considered texas a&m a major supplier of the best trained workforce in that area begovic said sanchez-sinencio served in many administrative and technical capacities of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) including life fellow he was a recipient of a honoris causa doctorate by the national institute for astrophysics optics and electronics mexico in november 1995 which was the first honorary degree awarded for microelectronic circuit-design contributions he was a co-recipient of the 1995 guillemin-cauer award for his work on cellular networks a recipient of the texas senate proclamation for outstanding accomplishments in 1996 and a co-recipient of the 1997 darlington award for his work on high-frequency filters he was also a recipient of the ieee circuits and systems society golden jubilee medal in 1999 and the prestigious ieee circuits and systems society 2008 charles a desoer technical achievement award
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beginning in march of 2020 texas a&m university launched aggies against covid-19 a virtual design competition that invited students of all majors to identify and solve problems related to the pandemic valentina alarcon and juan cuellar from the college of engineering and leticia gomes from mays school of business teamed up to create aira a portable air purifier after placing in the top ten teams they were automatically admitted into the national science foundations (nsf) innovation corps (icorps) site fellows program where they conducted an in-depth exploration of customer discovery as part of their customer discovery alarcon cuellar and gomes conducted 33 interviews with various professionals and individuals they also conducted a random survey to determine the publics perception of air quality survey results revealed that a majority of respondents (676%) were concerned about air quality given the current pandemic and that the primary locations of concern were schools and restaurants/bars its the teams hope that while everyone can use aira it would be especially helpful in crowded areas such as primary schools and universities
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we wanted to address how covid-19 is thought to be an airborne virus said alarcon the goal was to create a portable device that wasnt a mask β something that was simple to use and available to the general public air purifiers are not a novel idea however; current air purifiers are either installed into a buildings heating ventilation and air-conditioning (hvac) system (ie not portable) or they use whats called negative ionization to filter the air with negative ionization negative ions are released into the atmosphere and latch onto contaminant particles such as pollen allergens bacterium and other toxins
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those particles then become so heavy that they fall to the ground explained gomes the issue with negative ionization is that the virus is never actually killed and theres no guarantee that particles will fall to the ground β they can also fall to the closest surface whether that be a t-shirt coffee table or handbag aira aims to use bipolar ionization an emerging technology that will kill viral particles by releasing both positive and negative ions in the air catalyzing a chemical reaction on the viruss membrane and essentially deactivating the virus studies have shown that bipolar ionization can reduce 999% of microbes including covid-19 in a matter of minutes although the creators of aira would like to move forward with producing their design they found themselves hindered by technological barriers theres only one other company in the united states atmosair that implements bipolar ionization through the use of patented tubes that are installed into a homes hvac system however aira would require a similar mechanism on a much smaller scale and the technology that aira needs to utilize bipolar ionization while remaining compact and portable is not in existence as of yet
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dr paula hammond professor and head of the department of chemical engineering at the massachusetts institute of technology (mit) was selected as a hagler fellow hammond will be jointly collaborating with faculty and students from the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering and the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university the hagler institute for advanced study at texas a&m university invites a select group of decorated scholars named hagler fellows to conduct research with texas a&m faculty and graduate students the institutes purpose is to recruit talented faculty-researchers who strive for innovation and excellence in their respective fields we are excited for the opportunity to work with dr hammond said dr andreas polycarpou head of the mechanical engineering department she is an accomplished researcher and professor and our faculty and students will benefit greatly through this collaboration hammonds research focuses on macromolecular design and synthesis targeted drug delivery for cancer nanoscale assembly of synthetic biomaterials and electrostatic and directed materials assembly she is particularly interested in advancing translational medicine through the use of nanomaterials and polymeric systems she is a founding member of the mit institute for soldier nanotechnology as well as a member of mits koch institute for integrative cancer research and the mit energy initiative one of only 25 scientists elected to all three national academies she is a member of the national academy of sciences the national academy of engineering and the national academy of medicine she is also a member of the american academy of arts and sciences she was awarded the american chemical societys acs award in applied polymer science the charles ma stine award from the american institute of chemical engineers and the margaret rousseau pioneer award for lifetime achievement by a woman chemical engineer
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michael bass a doctoral student in the department of multidisciplinary engineering always knew he wanted to own a business β just like his dad and grandfather β but he didnt know how to make that a reality he had already double majored earning a bachelors degree in both electrical engineering and computer science and had started working on his doctoral degree when an email advertising an entrepreneurship course caught his eye i always wanted to do a startup but i had no idea how to go about it i had no idea what was involved he said how do you actually take something that is an idea to potentially commercializing it enter rodney boehm director of the engineering entrepreneurship program and instructor for bass first class bass took the class and has continued to be involved with the program for the past several years honing his skills by participating in all facets of the engineering entrepreneurship program currently bass is working on a startup icii technologies where he is developing technologies to implement artificial intelligence in fpgas (field-programmable gate arrays) this startup has been through the national science foundations innovation corps (i-corps) grant where he received $50 000 in funding and is preparing for the small business innovation research (sbir) grant in hopes of securing $250 000 in seed funding bass technology takes trained machine learning models and implements them into hardware for example when a camera is being used and a cat is detected artificial intelligence has made great progress in recognizing that the object is indeed a cat however that information is typically cloud-based bass is trying to get that information located on the camera itself so that every camera could better understand what it is seeing the application for this technology could be used in large area searches such as those performed by the us coast guard or in border security operations the engineering entrepreneurship program is a game-changer for engineering students bass said its giving engineering students an opportunity to learn the business side of things the use case the customer interaction the why which will put you ahead as an employee
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aggie hispanics in computing (ahic) is a new student organization in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university for students with an interest in exploring the technology field formed in september the group is committed to empowering hispanic/latinx students to pursue and succeed in computer science careers as well as providing educational opportunities and resources to further promote the idea that computing is for everyone officers include larry powell president; maximiliano zavala vice president; bernardo gonzalez de castilla treasurer; valeria heredia administration officer; elba garza officer; gino chacon mentoring and leadership officer; and nadxhieli juarez; professional communications officer dr dilma da silva professor and holder of the ford motor company design professorship serves as the groups faculty advisor
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the number of computer science job openings has skyrocketed in the past few years but tech professionals from minority groups are still severely underrepresented more specifically hispanic/latinx tech professionals make up only about 7% of the field to help increase diversity and inclusion in the field ahic looks to develop a safe space where students can connect and help each other with coursework work on passion projects brush up on or learn new computing skills and network with former students overall the officers hope that the group can be a support system for students who do not have one in their personal lives or the communities that they are involved in
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people say it is hard to find talented hispanic/latinx computer scientists and computer engineers but that is not true at all said da silva at texas a&m we have hundreds attending our classes right now and this organization will help better connect industry to current and former students ahic is currently looking to recruit new members and welcomes students from all backgrounds and disciplines visit the groups website for the latest news and announcements
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even before the coronavirus pandemic hit finding elderly care was becoming more difficult in the united states trying to find the right facility while balancing budget health concerns and time were challenges that covid-19 compounded however an interdisciplinary team of student researchers from texas a&m university are working toward a mobile solution
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dealing with the mental trauma of watching a loved ones memories and mental faculties deteriorate is difficult enough said team member tj falohun biomedical engineering doctoral student individuals in this position should not have to struggle to find the information that they need to make the best decision on finding care for their loved one with their application olera the team aims to provide a resource for children or spouses of elderly individuals in need of professional care and connects them to local care options while the name olera doesnt stand for anything falohun said it evokes a feeling of balance lightness and tranquility that represents the vision of their venture
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this not only lowers the stress involved with finding care but it drastically reduces the time that this process would otherwise take said member carter radocha computer engineering junior upon logging in users will have the ability to filter local facilities by price location and offered medical services information that would otherwise be time consuming to obtain the team which also includes business administration graduate student logan dubose biomedical engineering senior jesse phipps and biomedical engineering graduate student chidinma nzedibe began through participation in sling health a student organization where teams tackle unmet clinical needs in interdisciplinary teams the members wanted to address alzheimers and dementia
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before they even began app development they needed more information on what needs there were in the elder care community team members participated in the national science foundations innovation corps (i-corps) site fellows program at texas a&m this summer where they interviewed 40 people familiar with the process of searching for elderly care this helped them learn about one of the greatest challenges they would have to address a lack of knowledge on what to do when a loved one needs to be moved to a long-term care facility we imagine that our service will redefine how people seek senior care radocha said having one consolidated resource that is simplified and easy to use for anyone can significantly reduce the time spent seeking out care and increase first time matching of a care option for a senior
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magda lagoudas executive director industry/nonprofit partnerships in the college of engineering said the program has impacted more than 100 student teams such as olera on campus by providing training mentor support and funding "it was great working with olera in the site program this summer and i am super excited to see them continue their work on a very important issue for our society " lagoudas said moving forward the team plans to launch a limited beta test to test and refine the product they also are focusing on entrepreneurial efforts now in the process of forming an llc and connecting with early adopters interested in their service
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less than a year ago olera was nothing but an idea falohun said currently we have a hardworking team of eight students a prototype and several early adopters who are eager for our product launch by keeping the needs of our users first we believe we can overcome any obstacles that may arise and create a digital platform that will revolutionize elderly and dementia care to learn more about the project check out the team's website
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seven engineering faculty members at texas a&m university received faculty early career development program (career) awards from the national science foundation (nsf) for their 2020 funding cycle the nsf career program offers support to early career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization activities pursued by early career faculty are expected to build a firm foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research each year the nsf presents an estimated 500 career awards totaling around $250 million to early career faculty at us institutions of higher learning museums observatories research labs professional societies and similar organizations associated with research or educational activities this years recipients include: dr faruque hasanassistant professor and kim tompkins mcdivitt 88phillip mcdivitt 87 faculty fellowartie mcferrin department of chemical engineering hasans five-year research project career: synergistic design analysis and learning of intensified process systems aims to systematically detect and analyze the existence emergence and role of hidden synergistic effects in complex systems synergy is the combined effect of cooperative interactions between two or more organizations substances or other agents that is greater than the sum of their separate effects wherever complex systems exist there exists synergy or the potential for synergy hasan argues that studying and understanding synergies could unlock hidden potential across a wide swath of academic disciplines it (synergy) has a very transformative impact beyond chemical engineering said hasan biology materials science economics business and education can all benefit from a deeper understanding of synergistic effects read more about his research dr ruihong huangassistant professordepartment of computer science and engineering huangs five-year career project discourse level event-event relation identification aims to create document-level event graphs that identify the relationships (eg temporal and causal relations) between events mentioned anywhere in a document in order to better contextualize real-world events and interpret how and why they happened thus better supporting various event-oriented applications events tend to be described in a complex relationship with other events she said for example a news article describing the events of a protest without information on why it was launched would be considered incomplete read more about her research dr abhishek jainassistant professordepartment of biomedical engineering jains project career: modeling human veins and venous pathology with organ-on-chip engineering for basic translational and educational research will further his work to develop new disease models of veins to better understand how these unique structures help our cardiovascular systems function venous diseases are ranked amongst the top cardiovascular causes of death worldwide we have the opportunity to advance this model to prevent future death from pandemics that are actually vascular diseases jain said you could very quickly use these tools to find drugs to find treatments you can save lives by using these devices read more about his research dr stephanie paalassistant professorzachry department of civil and environmental engineering paal will use her career award leveraging existing knowledge and artificial intelligence to understand the performance of civil infrastructure under extreme hazard loads to leverage existing knowledge and artificial intelligence to understand the performance of civil infrastructure under extreme loads such as natural or human-made disasters like earthquakes hurricanes or fires"i will focus specifically on the application of ai (artificial intelligence) techniques such as transfer learning by leveraging available relevant large datasets to address the small datasets that are comprised by the development of these new materials and structural designs she said while my research goal focuses on augmenting human knowledge with the artificial my education goal focuses on augmenting current practices with the physical" read more about her research dr matt pharrassistant professorj mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering pharr was awarded nsf support for his work career: electro-chemo-mechanics of li and na metal: toward dendrite- and damage-free metallic anodes of rechargeable batteries his research is investigating lithium and sodium metal anodes and key alloys as potential components of next-generation batteries and how to overcome the challenges of safety and durability currently associated with these chemistries while the electrochemistry of lithium and sodium has been studied extensively at the heart of the issue lies a mechanics of materials problem pharr said unstable deformation occurs during operation producing so-called dendrites and damage materials and mechanics-based studies are thus necessary to enable safe and durable operation read more about his research dr yang shenassistant professordepartment of electrical and computer engineering through his project career: physics-constrained modeling of molecular texts graphs and images for deciphering protein-protein interactions shen will work on computational methods to unravel how proteins interact in living systems which will allow for a better understanding of how biological systems work this can ultimately lead to the development of therapeutics to combat diseases or illnesses shen will investigate protein-protein interactions so that researchers have a better understanding of how living systems function and how therapeutics can be developed for diseases he is developing algorithms using machine-learning and artificial-intelligence techniques that will treat proteins as multimodal data from which patterns can be mined and insights can be discovered i am very excited that my ideas are supported and the project can be carried on because this is something i feel really devoted to and passionate about he said read more about his research dr ankit srivastavaassistant professordepartment of materials science and engineering dr ankit srivastavas project career: constrained slip cracking and instability in extremely anisotropic nanolayered solids will focus on understanding and modeling microstructural-scale deformation and failure mechanisms in nanolayered crystalline materials some of these nanolayered materials hold tremendous promise for technologies where reliable performance is required under extreme environments an integrated experimental and computational approach will allow us to understand and engineer fracture and instability in nanolayered materials to enhance their damage tolerance and enable their use in critical applications srivastava said
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faye e and michael d smith β77 have contributed to the electrical engineering excellence fund distributions from this fund are at the discretion of the department head for critical departmental program needs not supported by state funding allocations after graduating from high school michael studied electrical engineering at kilgore junior college for two years he said it was the dean of engineering dr samuel canterbury '36 who set him on the path to complete his bachelors in electrical engineering at texas a&m university michael details his history at texas a&m and describes his journey in analog integrated circuit design two of my professors dr philip allen and dr randy geiger expanded my thinking into considering this emerging field he said both had recently joined the faculty were doing research in that field and had an interest in establishing a graduate program in analog integrated circuit design four other electrical engineering students and i took the plunge and so the seven of us embarked on the fabulous journey of mapping out the courses for the new degree program while doing research together all five of us became the first ms graduates in the new analog circuit design curriculum after graduating from the program michael went directly into working for motorola's telecom division eventually becoming a design engineer for a startup dallas semiconductor which went public in 1987 i had opportunities to move into management eventually running the communications business unit maxim integrated eventually bought them and i stayed pretty much until retirement he said michael and faye hope their contribution will help the department in encouraging students to develop an interest in circuit design and help facilitate their studies although most electrical engineering graduates are focusing on software somebody still has to design the hardware equipment for the software to run on and design the communications 'plumbing' that enables the internet michael said since he was one of the first graduates of this program at texas a&m michael wanted to give back to keep the analog design department thriving for future grads i simply wanted to give back to the university as a small token of thanks for the opportunities it trained me for particularly the graduate-integrated circuit design group michael said my career opportunities opened up tremendously because of my masters in electrical engineering studies and i want to support the next generation of circuit designers michael and faye have two daughters and a son their oldest daughter julie attended texas a&m and graduated with a bachelors in marketing in 2008 michael said she is faithfully training her 9- and 11-year-old daughters to continue the aggie tradition
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contributions to excellence funds allow our department to have a direct and immediate impact on the program and student experience excellence fund earnings are directed at the discretion of the department head to projects such as equipment acquisition facility improvements awards for teaching and research student-driven professional development activities and more if you are interested in supporting the departments goal or would like more information on how you can give please contact true brown director of development
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two former students have established the doug 99 and angie turk β99 endowed scholarship this endowment will be used to provide one or more scholarships to full-time students in good standing pursuing an undergraduate degree in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university both doug and angie were drawn to texas a&m by the rich traditions and tight-knit student body that the university offered our time at texas a&m has greatly impacted both of our careers doug said it provided an experience that was second to none has opened countless doors as former students and established a deep-rooted appreciation for the fightin' texas aggies doug said his time spent in the college of engineering taught him the importance of teamwork and allowed him to gain valuable exposure to some of the best curriculum in the academic world doug and angie note that they have been interested in giving back to the university for some time we first met in a history class in the harrington education center our freshman year our interest in giving back was inspired by our shared aggie experience doug said since then the aggie spirit has always held a special place in our marriage and in the lives of our children as for the impact their gift will have doug and angie hope it will help others to experience the true meaning of being a part of the aggie family our bond as aggies is something that really can't be explained from your first time on the third deck at kyle field that first trip to the lawn at blue bell (park) to ring dance and elephant walk there is no other experience like the one we embark on as aggies doug said ultimately doug and angie hope their gift will help build upon the aggie legacy for years to come we want to help our university continue to lead the way in engineering and stem education doug said since angie taught middle school math for several years and doug is an electrical engineer they felt the multidisciplinary engineering technology (mxet) stem educator program was very fitting to fund their first scholarship the couple has two children and although they are not yet old enough for college they regularly attend aggie sports and other events as a family
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the college of engineering is one of the leading engineering programs in the united states ranking first in undergraduate enrollment and ninth in graduate enrollment endowments supporting the students in the college have an immeasurable impact on their education if you are interested in supporting the college of engineering and its departments or would like more information on how you can give please contact hannah walker assistant director of development
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the simple act of blowing through a straw could soon come to symbolize a breathtaking leap forward in the covid-19 fight β and in combating other public health threats including pathogens that could cause future pandemics that simple exhaled breath is key to a new device that uses artificial intelligence (ai) to detect whether individuals should be tested for covid-19 the sophisticated breathalyzer is being developed and tested through a collaboration among a dallas-based company worlds inc the us air force and the texas a&m university system called worlds protect the device takes the form of a kiosk where a person uses a disposable straw to blow into a copper inlet in less than a minute test results can be sent to the persons smartphone worlds inc co-founders dave copps and chris rohde envision worlds protect kiosks being placed outside of factories schools military bases anywhere large groups of people need to be screened for covid-19 or other infectious diseases people can walk up and literally just breathe into the device said rohde president of worlds inc it's completely noninvasive there's no amount of touching and you quickly get a result you get a yay or nay the texas a&m system has invested $1 million in the projects development it is assisting worlds inc with engineering and design prototype building and the mapping of a commercial manufacturing process five prototypes will be tried out this fall on the texas a&m campus getting tech innovations to market is one of our sweet spots said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m system this breakthrough could have lasting impact on global public health one of the prototypes was set up thursday on the texas a&m campus to test students and others aggies will be tested using both worlds protect and polymerase chain reaction (pcr) tests results will be compared to test the accuracy of worlds protect and refine its system more than 800 individuals have been tested with worlds protect already at wright-patterson air force base in ohio and brigham young university (byu) results so far suggest that the accuracy of worlds protect is comparable to pcr tests which are considered the best type of test available for diagnosing covid-19 by applying ai we are able to achieve a high level of accuracy and improve every day as more results are analyzed " said copps ceo of worlds inc we are using pcr tests as our yardstick to see and understand our progress copps and rohde are working with the food and drug administration to obtain emergency use authorization that eventually could allow worlds protect to become an alternative to pcr tests texas a&m system experts are involved from the texas a&m college of engineering the texas a&m engineering experiment station and the secureamerica institute an organization headquartered on the rellis campus that assists with high-tech manufacturing rob gorham executive director of secureamerica said the texas a&m system specializes in helping businesses like worlds inc get through the so-called valley of death between an invention and commercial viability there's a lot of work that has to happen gorham said you have to think about standards you have to actually be able to rapidly and with agility circulate your design as well as think through all of the different supply-chain requirements inside the worlds protect kiosk a persons breath is examined for the specific volatile organic compounds that are generated by the body when someone is fighting the virus the test is done with advanced mass spectrometry technology a chemical analysis made smarter by ai worlds inc uses ai software to map the chemical code of a body reacting to the infection the copper inlet and other key interior elements are heated between each breath to clean and sanitize the device so one individual test does not contaminate another individual test dr guido verbeck a doctoral graduate of texas a&m has developed the devices key technology verbeck a university of north texas chemistry professor has worked with worlds inc software engineers since march he is a widely known expert on innovative uses of mass spectrometry his peer-reviewed research on using mass spectrometry to detect covid-19 was accepted and published recently by the royal society of chemistry dr david staack associate professor of mechanical engineering at texas a&m has partnered with worlds inc on the development of the breath-capture system for the device the system controls the variables in how people breathe so that the chemical compounds related to covid-19 are more easily identified by the mass spectrometry technology secureamerica is building additional worlds protect prototypes for demonstration at us air force bases and other department of defense locations including lackland air force base in san antonio where the devices could help screen up to 900 airmen weekly who arrive for basic training col charles bris-bois leader of the air force disruptive technology team at the pentagon will coordinate the screening of the airmen in texas he also helped arrange the devices initial testing in ohio and screening now underway at byu copps said additional device testing locations within texas are also being discussed worlds protect software also could be engineered to detect other health problems including future pandemics and bioterrorism threats it is exciting for texas a&m experts to be part of a project with so much potential gorham said we could be saving people's lives and allow the economy to come back because there's a way to detect covid-19 rapidly it means the world literally
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an article written by dr qingsheng wang associate professor and director of the safety engineering program in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university was selected as an american chemical society (acs) editors' choice graduate students zeren jiao pingfan hu and hongfei xu from the wang group are co-authors of the paper in the article machine learning and deep learning in chemical health and safety: a systematic review of techniques and applications which originally appeared in the journal acs chemical health & safety wang and his team examined the current literature surrounding machine learning and deep learning in the context of safety engineering machine learning and deep learning are subsets of artificial intelligence and models based on machine learning/deep learning techniques can automatically learn from data and perform tasks such as predictions and decision-making a great variety of interdisciplinary studies have shown that combining machine learning and deep learning into a comprehensive safety regime have been successful in trend identification and prediction assistance which can greatly save manpower as well as material and financial resources while both machine and deep learning have very similar goals in the context of safety engineering there are a few key differences machine learning incorporates probability theory statistics approximation theory algorithm complexity theory and convex analysis to build algorithms that can build mathematical models based on training data for predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed to do so essentially machine learning technology can interpret huge amounts of data and offer predictions trends and make informed decisions deep learning which is a subset of machine learning uses artificial neural networks β computing systems inspired by biological neurons β as the architecture to characterize and learn data deep learning forms a more abstract high-level representation attribute category or featured by combining low-level features to discover distributed feature representations of data which can eliminate the feature engineering step of machine learning-based algorithms with increasing accuracy and are extremely useful for tasks like computer vision and natural language processing both areas are rapidly developing with great potential for application in safety engineering in the article wang and his research team analyzed and categorized more than 100 peer-reviewed papers to present a snapshot of the current machine and deep learning scholarship as well as to present a review of the progress in the area further wang highlights the challenges and the gaps in the current machine and deep learning literature concerning safety engineering acs editors' choice is a service designed to feature scientific articles of broad public interest and to make this material widely accessible to both the scholarly community and general public this is an honor given to only one article from the entire acs portfolio each day of the year
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every year an estimated 15 million babies are born preterm (before 37 completed weeks of gestation) and this number is rising current interventions to prevent premature births are not always successful and the health care cost to treat them is over $26 billion per year in the united states alone researchers at texas a&m university are working to produce an organ-on-a-chip model to help prevent these preterm births tissue chips also called organ-on-a-chip or microphysiological systems are hybrid microsystems that contain both microfabricated structures and human cells to mimic the multi-cellular structure of human organs dr arum han professor and presidential impact fellow in the department of electrical and computer engineering and director of the nanobio systems laboratory and also a member of the tissue chip testing center at texas a&m is leading this research along with dr ramkumar menon professor at the university of texas medical branch at galveston they received a $38 million grant from the national institutes of healths (nih) national center for advancing translational sciences (ncats) for their research on developing extracellular vesicle-based therapeutics against preterm birth through the use of maternal-fetal interface on a chip research has shown that fetal immune responses are key mediators triggering spontaneous preterm birth where labor starts early and doctors are not able to stop the labor process this accounts for about 60% of preterm births current prevention strategies do not address fetal immune responses instead doctors focus on stopping contractions to delay birth which is more of a band-aid approach instead of actually fixing the problem finding a way to reduce inflammation in the tissues at the feto-maternal interface (which helps protect and nourish the fetus) could help maintain a pregnancy and prevent spontaneous preterm birth unfortunately current intervention strategies have not been very effective in treating this problem currently to study preterm birth researchers use very simplistic cell culture models but the feto-maternal interface is a complicated three-dimensional organ structure with many different cell layers all working together to protect the baby throughout gestation han said conventional cell culture systems are two-dimensional and cannot incorporate the many different cellular layers and thus cannot mimic the complicated 3d multi-cellular structure of the feto-maternal interface animal models are also used but most animal models are structurally and functionally different from human and thus not adequate
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