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hypersonic technology presents a vast number of revolutionary opportunities including the advancement of future commercial flight travel with the potential to reach speeds of 4 000 miles per hour nearly eight times faster than current average cruising speeds for commercial airliners before implementation however researchers must ensure the vessels themselves can withstand the challenges of traveling at such high speeds one hazard for next-generation hypersonic vessels is hydrometeors water or ice particles that have formed in the atmosphere including clouds fog snow rain or hail which have the potential to cause significant damage to the vehicle structure at hypersonic speeds the us office of naval research is supporting a research team led by dr dorrin jarrahbashi in better understanding the impacts of these hydrometeors as well as solid particles like ash and dust on hypersonic vessels upon their re-entry to the atmosphere the goal of this research is to enhance the fundamental understanding of the evolution of aero breakup and evaporation of rain droplets and the behavior of ice particles approaching the transient shocked flow induced by a hypersonic projectile flying through precipitating clouds said jarrahbashi assistant professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university if successful the research will be able to better estimate the physical damage on a hypersonic vessel by predicting the state of the particles and flowfield around it
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while each flight is different with its potential for encountering hazards determined in part by its objectives and flight trajectory takeoff and landing pose the greatest likelihood for a hypersonic vessel to encounter hydrometeors which could present a significant erosion hazard to its thermal protection system or even cause the nose-tip to change shape either outcome has the potential to set off a cascade of other damaging effects for the vessel a change in the nose shape and enhanced surface roughness affect the flowfield causing extra heating and shear to the vehicle body that ultimately controls the vehicles aerodynamic performance jarrahbashi said the next generation of hypersonic projectiles requires novel component design and resilient materials to withstand the impact of hydrometeors to aid in developing better designs and materials that are adequately equipped to handle these particles jarrahbashi and her team are set to apply a comprehensive computational framework to address this versatility in scales that are currently lacking without the availability of practical experimentation the team will also validate their findings through shock tube measurements in collaboration with the fluid mixing at extreme conditions laboratory directed by dr jacob mcfarland associate professor of mechanical engineering the team specifically hopes to augment a material damage model extensively used by the us department of defense by adding adjustments to account for expected particulate flow behavior when traveling at hypersonic speeds the attributes of particle clouds and particularly ice crystals obtained in this project can be used in surface erosion models to estimate the extent of the damage to the hypersonic vessel jarrahbashi said understanding the effect of the shock layer to decelerate and deflect particles to protect the material of hypersonic vehicles is a key step to predict the resistance of different materials and the potential influence of the shocked particulate flows on the vehicle designs the advancements planned for this project will provide direct contributions to the improvement of the performance and resilience of current and future us navy hypersonic technologies
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drying is an essential part of the product manufacturing industry which accounts for up to 25% of the national energy consumption of developed countries with the support of the us department of energy researchers from the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university are employing their expertise to significantly reduce energy consumption in a specific area the wood-drying industry the project is jointly led by dr zheng o'neill and dr bryan rasmussen as part of a multi-million-dollar initiative to reduce industrial emissions and manufacture clean energy technologies o'neill serves as associate professor and j mike walker '66 career development professor and rasmussen serves as leland t jordan professor ii the team is also supported by the texas a&m engineering experiment station through the energy systems laboratorys industry assessment center nearly 15 000 companies in the us make up the wood product manufacturing industry and the energy-intensive kiln drying process greatly contributes to the large energy consumption of the industry the team's proposed shift in wood-drying mainly known as kiln drying technology could provide improved energy efficiency more unified product quality and increased throughput and reduced reliance on fossil fuel sources "with the proposed desiccant-assisted heat pump system we aim to achieve at least 25-30% energy consumption reduction 40-50% carbon intensity reduction and 25% operation cost reduction " said o'neill "if successful this project will help the wood-drying industry achieve carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035" the technology and methods the team seeks to use in this project include dehumidification low-cost internet of things sensors data assimilation and model-free predictive controls to intelligently and safely operate the drying process the project will apply a three-module drying system which is set to be the first example of a kirigami-based heat exchanger system alongside innovations in desiccant-assisted heat pumps the third component of the three-module system will be an intelligent deep-reinforcement learning-based product-centric controller although this project is primarily focused on wood drying o'neill noted that the principles of the system could also be applied to various other drying applications like food or textiles in addition the proposed heat pump innovations will have wide applications for heating ventilation and air-conditioning in buildings to promote building decarbonization through electrifications an additional objective of the research is to involve students from underrepresented minority groups in stem by collaborating with minority-serving institutions and offering training and workshops on the technologies and industry drying process in underserved communities and economically disadvantaged areas in addition to o'neill and rasmussen partners on the project include dr shu yang from the university of pennsylvania dr cindy chang from the university of virginia dr xinfeng xie from michigan technological university and dr andy pascall from lawrence livermore national laboratory
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as an athlete with a mind for engineering david g barker 66 had a journey to texas a&m university that stands out from the rest his experiences have inspired him to establish two scholarships for texas high school graduates who are studying mechanical or nuclear engineering at texas a&mhailing from la marque texas barker was recruited to run track at schreiner college in kerrville texas now a four-year university schreiner was at the time a junior college known for its engineering programafter setting several schreiner records in the 880-yard dash cross country two miles and mile relay barker graduated from schreiner with an associates degree in engineering and set his eyes toward college station texas once he was off the track barkers new journey required equal commitment this time being fully immersed in his academic pursuitsi was attracted to texas a&m due to its reputation in engineering and science barker said the academic rigor as well as the engineering skills that were delivered to me as a student certainly helped me in my early careerbarker earned a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering supported by the frank m & wilton h leverett mechanical engineering scholarship which he was awarded in 1965 and 1966 he remained at texas a&m to obtain his masters degree in nuclear engineering what he experienced during graduate school would later be pivotal in his careeri had some great professors barker said my work with dr john randall 65 associate head of the nuclear science center enabled me to work in applied research and project management later in my career barker found success in his professional career managing the engineering construction and other operative aspects of large projects in the oil and gas sector and with other commercial facilities he is proud of his work with houston lighting & power where he was recruited just several years post-graduation i am extremely proud of the work i did while managing the south texas nuclear project which is likely one the most successful nuclear power plants on earth barker saidboth schreiner and texas a&m have recognized barker for his professional success in 1999 he was a j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering distinguished graduate and in 2014 a nuclear engineering distinguished graduate he was also designated a schreiner university distinguished former student in 2015eager to give others the same opportunity he was given to succeed at texas a&m and beyond barker has established two new scholarships the david barker 66 nuclear engineering endowed scholarship and the david barker 66 mechanical engineering endowed scholarship they will be awarded to students who have graduated from a texas high schoolthe scholarships should give deserving students the ability to complete their studies at texas a&m and go into the world and make a difference barker said
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his passion for texas a&m engineering extends beyond the students who will receive the endowed scholarships barkers confidence in the university and the culture of excellence that surrounds it has also driven his desire to give enabling and expanding the schools impactmy support also goes to all the departments professors staff and top leadership of texas a&m who strive to be the best in all endeavors barker said texas a&m is a unique american university likely unmatched in the nation and i want to help preserve the enduring effort of those before me and serve as a guiding light for current students to excel the nation and the world need aggies to succeed and make a difference
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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 one of our development officers
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the future of work is here as industries begin to see humans working closely with robots theres a need to ensure that the relationship is effective smooth and beneficial to humans robot trustworthiness and humans willingness to trust robot behavior are vital to this working relationship however capturing human trust levels can be difficult due to subjectivity a challenge researchers in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university aim to solve dr ranjana mehta associate professor and director of the neuroergonomics lab said her labs human-autonomy trust research stemmed from a series of projects on human-robot interactions in safety-critical work domains funded by the national science foundation (nsf) while our focus so far was to understand how operator states of fatigue and stress impact how humans interact with robots trust became an important construct to study mehta said we found that as humans get tired they let their guards down and become more trusting of automation than they should however why that is the case becomes an important question to address mehtas latest nsf-funded work recently published in human factors: the journal of the human factors and ergonomics society focuses on understanding the brain-behavior relationships of why and how an operators trusting behaviors are influenced by both human and robot factors mehta also has another publication in the journal applied ergonomics that investigates these human and robot factors using functional near-infrared spectroscopy mehtas lab captured functional brain activity as operators collaborated with robots on a manufacturing task they found faulty robot actions decreased the operators trust in the robots that distrust was associated with increased activation of regions in the frontal motor and visual cortices indicating increasing workload and heightened situational awareness interestingly the same distrusting behavior was associated with the decoupling of these brain regions working together which otherwise were well connected when the robot behaved reliably mehta said this decoupling was greater at higher robot autonomy levels indicating that neural signatures of trust are influenced by the dynamics of human-autonomy teaming what we found most interesting was that the neural signatures differed when we compared brain activation data across reliability conditions (manipulated using normal and faulty robot behavior) versus operators trust levels (collected via surveys) in the robot mehta said this emphasized the importance of understanding and measuring brain-behavior relationships of trust in human-robot collaborations since perceptions of trust alone is not indicative of how operators trusting behaviors shape up dr sarah hopko 19 lead author on both papers and recent industrial engineering doctoral student said neural responses and perceptions of trust are both symptoms of trusting and distrusting behaviors and relay distinct information on how trust builds breaches and repairs with different robot behaviors she emphasized the strengths of multimodal trust metrics neural activity eye tracking behavioral analysis etc can reveal new perspectives that subjective responses alone cannot offer the next step is to expand the research into a different work context such as emergency response and understand how trust in multi-human robot teams impact teamwork and taskwork in safety-critical environments mehta said the long-term goal is not to replace humans with autonomous robots but to support them by developing trust-aware autonomy agents this work is critical and we are motivated to ensure that humans-in-the-loop robotics design evaluation and integration into the workplace are supportive and empowering of human capabilities mehta said
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every aggie dreams of the day they graduate from texas a&m university however it is not just their hard work that gets them to this point many people along the way helped shape and mold their education this is especially true for three former students from the department of ocean engineering vincent yu ‘11 ning xu 06 and liqing huang 10 dr jun zhang had a great influence on these three over the years and it led them to establish the professor jun zhang endowed scholarshipthis gift is from our hearts yu said the three of us loved our time at texas a&m so much that we became faculty and now help train the next generation of ocean engineersestablishing this scholarship was never a hard decision for yu xu and huang being able to honor a person that was so influential in their lives seemed like the right thing to doin order to thank professor zhang for his great contribution to the field of ocean engineering as well as our own education and career developments we collectively decided to establish this scholarship named after him said xu we want to encourage the next generation of young scholars in the ocean engineering department to achieve their career goalsthe ocean engineering department was a second home to yu xu and huang there were so many lessons they learned in and out of the classroom and a lot of those came from zhang campus was more than just a place to advance their education it was a place to develop into the people they are todaymy time at texas a&m for both my undergraduate and graduate studies was probably the happiest period of my life said xu everything i learned inside and outside of class impacted my career in different ways i am privileged and proud to be called an aggie ocean engineertheir scholarship is not only meant to honor zhang but to encourage other former students to give back to the department that gave so much to them this fund will directly impact and benefit students in the ocean engineering department and help prepare them for greatness as they move on to their careerswe hope that this scholarship inspires others to give back yu said our goal is to grow this endowment to help other students in the departmentany former students of zhang or the ocean engineering department that are interested in contributing to this scholarship are encouraged to do so by donating to the professor jun zhang scholarship fund
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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 one of our development officers
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in september the texas a&m university college of engineering held the first aggies invent of the year this month's challenge information viz was sponsored by the national security agency (nsa) teams were urged to focus on the different aspects of data to allow access to information to all people students from the bush school of government and public service were also invited to participate neil ziring technical director for the cybersecurity directorate at the nsa took part in the judging process he even spent the weekend helping teams work through their ideas and answering all questions about the challenge "the problems that have been posed to the participants all have aspects that are relevant to the kinds of work the nsa does; they're not precisely nsa problems but they have the same attributes " said ziring "we're hoping that by participating in this event and this activity the students will get a flavor of the kinds of challenges the nsa faces and maybe get interested in working in national security" the first-place team created a wi-fi traffic monitoring system to tell if any of an individual's smart devices were talking to things they should not be this allows the user to keep personal data stored in their computers on their home network safe and away from untrustworthy actors "it's a good chance to look into cybersecurity and how cybercrimes actually take place and see that it's not a ‘theyre only coming after the government sort of thing; it's a very personal situation too " said aerospace engineer anderson royer '23
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in second place was up to data whose idea was to use student insights about their participation in college in events and organizations such as aggies invent and compare it to their performance in their careers after college their data would specify what organizations and programs at texas a&m are most valuable to student success ziring emphasized the impact of aggies invent "it gets them working in teams makes them think creatively and makes them think about a problem and approaches to solving it"
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team illuminate placed third for their idea of designing an algorithm that highlights the weak points of a power grid in doing so the algorithm takes entered data generates a map of risk and separates that map into grids based on risk to identify where infrastructure investment is needed
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in a rare turn of events the judges chose to include a fourth-place team mediator the team developed software that could integrate with social media platforms to combat disinformation it would analyze primary sources cross-verify citations and assign a score based on its perceived credibility the team included indira gunness a graduate student at the bush school of government and public service who offered a more policy-centered perspective on the challenge "i think it provides you with a wonderful platform to work with the technical side and the policy side of things " said gunness "it allows you to integrate both of those perspectives into your thinking and decision-making processes when you're coming up with solutions and thinking of policy"
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dr arum han texas instruments professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was honored with the regional solid waste management award for environmental education and outreach by the brazos valley council of governments (bvcog) for his innovative plastic waste biodegradation strategy he began working on this strategy last year as part of a new project he is leading funded by the national science foundation's emerging frontiers in research and innovation program this award is presented annually to an individual who supports and demonstrates education and outreach activities in environmental stewardship a broad interest for the bvcog solid waste management program which is funded by a grant from the texas commission on environmental quality for this project han is trying to integrate the areas of synthetic biology and microfluidics by developing and utilizing high-throughput microfluidic devices this would enable him to screen millions of individual strains/variants from microbial libraries to identify the most efficient microbes that can degrade and reutilize plastic he is also committed to providing opportunities for students to receive hands-on experiences in the lab to promote next-generation biotechnology and learn its use for broad societal benefit
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han is a texas a&m chancellors enhancing development and generating excellence in scholarship (edges) fellow and a texas a&m presidential impact fellow he also holds courtesy joint appointments in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and the department of biomedical engineering he is a graduate faculty member of the texas a&m health science center faculty of the texas a&m institute for neuroscience and faculty of texas a&ms toxicology program he currently also serves as the editor-in-chief for the journal biomedical microdevices his research interests center on solving grand challenge problems in the broad areas of health biotechnology sustainable energy and synthetic biology through the use of micro/nano systems technology han was presented the regional solid waste management award for environmental education and outreach at the brazos valley council of governments annual meeting on sept 14 it was great to see that our local citizens are very interested in the research and educational activities we do here at texas a&m and it gives me even stronger motivation to make significant and lasting contributions to our society han said it was truly a great honor to be recognized for what we do here
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the ground rumbles and buildings shake as energy waves travel through the earth's crust an average of 55 earthquakes happen every day worldwide but while some include tiny shocks and tremors that reoccur throughout an area others have the potential to be severe and devastatingdr maria koliou assistant professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering received a faculty early career development (career) award from the national science foundation (nsf) to study the impact of these seismic events on aging wooden residential buildings and communitiesthe career award is one of the most prestigious awards for up-and-coming researchers the grant provides funding to support promising integrated research and education projects"the findings of this study will advance our understanding of the interplay between chronic and acute hazard effects on wooden residential buildings and enable the development and evaluation of mitigation strategies that will improve functional housing recovery " koliou saidlocal communities and governments can use these mitigation strategies as a framework for post-disaster rehabilitation and pre-disaster preparedness according to koliou wood-frame structures represent the vast majority of single- and multi-family residential units in the us and about 38% of houses were built before 1970 now more than 50 years old"the aging of such buildings may significantly increase the risk of extensive damage in the event of a natural hazard resulting in costly unplanned maintenance/repair work and injuries fatalities and population dislocation she said through our work we will evaluate the response of housing infrastructure of various ages and environmental exposures to propose mitigation strategies to improve their response to earthquake events" the outcomes will inform building codes on the response and capacity of aging residential infrastructure and influence the adoption of environmental degradation in the design of new homes as part of the career award koliou will focus on education and outreach of her work to various audiences including middle school students and hispanic female college students to develop and prepare a diverse stem workforce with interdisciplinary training to tackle future housing challenges this award contributes to the nsf's role in the national earthquake hazards reduction program
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jody brusenhan ‘83 a texas native grew up fishing and hunting in rockwood after graduating from high school brusenhan attended texas a&m university to study civil engineering he was proud to be an aggie engineer and graduated with his degree in 1983 he then began a fruitful career in the construction industrybrusenhan strived for excellence which led to many successful positions throughout his career in 2018 he became president and ceo of the heico construction groupwhile he loved his job and the people he worked with his family was his ultimate source of joy he married his high school sweetheart rhonda and had two daughters his daughters ashley and jennifer attended texas a&m and graduated in 2010 and 2017 respectivelybrusenhan passed in 2021 the heico construction group now known as the heico construction solutions group established the jody brusenhan 83 memorial scholarship fund in honor of their former president and ceo this fund will grant scholarships to native texas students who are pursuing a bachelors degree in civil engineering and are enrolled in the construction engineering and management program the donors hope this fund will honor brusenhan while alleviating the recipients' financial burden
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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 one of our development officers
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the national centers of academic excellence in cybersecurity (located within the national security agency) has awarded a grant (h98230-22-1-0234) to the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university and the texas a&m cybersecurity center the funds will support a research project focused on automating risk detection and mitigation in cybersecurity systems the project is led by dr drew hamilton and dr nitesh saxena professors in the department and chris lanclos and kohler smallwood research engineers at the texas a&m cybersecurity center automated risk detection and mitigation is the future of cybersecurity for many different systems but extensive research must be done to address the challenges in developing autonomic systems said hamilton the research will focus on developing a novel malware detection system for cybersecurity analysts that uses autonomic methods based on the latest advancements in machine-learning and deep-learning techniques current automated systems typically only respond to specific events with predetermined responses in contrast autonomic systems can determine whether an action plan is needed and formulate a logical answer for a potential malware threat based on the essential information it gathers during each step of its management cycle with the number of automated cyber-attacks increasing rapidly autonomic computer system defenses need to promptly respond and defend against malicious software this research addresses multiple areas of interest in the autonomic security research community and explores additional ways to detect malware with cutting-edge artificial intelligence techniques said saxena as one of only nine universities in the nation to be designated a center of academic excellence in cyber operations cyber research and cyber defense education this work contributes to the universitys overall vision of leadership and excellence in cybersecurity
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a northwestern medicine study has identified a protein that drives breast cancer stemness and metastasis the findings enabled by machine learning were published in the journal elife tumor-initiating cells with stem-progenitor cell properties (stemness) are thought to be essential for cancer development and metastatic regeneration in many cancers however elucidation of the underlying molecular network has been challenging according to the studys senior author dr huiping liu md phd professor of pharmacology and medicine in the division of hematology and oncology combining machine learning and experimental investigation liu and her team demonstrated that the protein membrane cd81 interacts with another previously identified tumor-initiating cell marker called cd44 in promoting tumor cell cluster formation and lung metastasis of triple-negative breast cancer (tnbc) the findings have broadened the knowledge of the molecular regulatory network of breast cancer cell stemness and may be significant for therapeutic targeting liu said tnbc comprises 10 to 15% of newly diagnosed breast cancer cases and is highly metastatic with low long-term survival tnbc metastasizes to the visceral organs such as the lungs liver and brain while the cellular mechanisms contributing to the spreading of the tumor cell remain largely unknown protein networks offer a clue we know that protein functions and their networks are part of the backbones directly mediating cellular phenotypes and performance she said in previous research lius team found that the breast tumor-initiating cell marker cd44 mediates the formation of circulating tumor cell (ctc) clusters (two or more cells) and its enriched expression in such clusters predicts an unfavorable overall survival of patients with breast cancer especially tnbc ctc clusters possess up to 100-fold greater efficiency than single ctcs in seeding metastasis in this study to characterize the protein network of cd44 the scientists found that cd44 binds to cd81 for coordinated membrane localization and both are required for optimal self-renewal ctc cluster formation and metastasis emphasizing the indispensable functions of cd44 and cd81 in cell adhesion and intercellular interactions in metastasis to demonstrate the partnership between the two membrane proteins the scientists used sophisticated computational algorithms-based protein structural modeling (machine learning) to predict the interface regions and amino acid residues involved in the protein interactions experimental approaches were then used to validate cd44 and cd81 interface interactions machine learning and deep learning have transformed protein structure modeling greatly facilitating the molecular understanding and therapeutic development for tnbc and other metastatic disease liu said liu adds that machine learning and deep-learning-facilitated research will not only exponentially scale up the simulated therapeutic screening for the best efficacy and lowest toxicity but also make personalized medicine more achievable and affordable our next step is to combine the ctc biomarker analysis with personalized targeting therapy development she said dr tujin shi a senior scientist at pacific northwest national laboratory and dr yang shen associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university were co-senior authors of this study contributing to proteomic analyses and machine learning respectively for cd81-cd44 network and molecular signaling studies dr massimo cristofanilli former professor of medicine in the division of hematology and oncology (now at cornell university) provided patient blood samples to the ctc analyses in the study erika ramos a student in the driskill graduate program in life sciences was the first author of the study and research associate nurmaa dashzeveg was the co-last author; both work in lius laboratory this research was supported by the department of defense the national institutes of health the national cancer institute the national science foundation the lynn sage cancer research foundation the susan g komen foundation the american cancer society northwestern university and the julius kahn fellowship
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dr dimitar filev is among the 2022-23 class of hagler fellows where he will collaborate with students and faculty from the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering and the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university "we are excited to have dr filev at texas a&m collaborating with our faculty and students " said dr guillermo aguilar mechanical engineering department head "he brings invaluable experience and expertise that will prove greatly beneficial to our program" the hagler institute for advanced study's purpose is to recruit talented faculty researchers who strive for innovation and excellence in their respective fields the institute was founded in 2010 to bring world-class scholars hagler fellows to texas a&m to collaborate with faculty and students at the university since its inception the institute has hosted more than 80 fellows "i have known and collaborated with dr filev over the past three decades " said dr reza langari engineering technology and industrial distribution department head "he is a natural fit for serving as a hagler fellow with his strong academic-oriented background and experience in a broad range of areas on the research and development side he will be an invaluable resource to faculty and students in the college of engineering during his term as a hagler fellow" filev is a national academy of engineering member and serves as henry ford technical fellow at the ford research and innovation center he is the recipient of numerous recognitions including the norbert wiener award from the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) systems man and cybernetics society; the outstanding industrial applications award international fuzzy systems association; and the pioneers' award ieee computation intelligence society his research focuses on computational intelligence artificial intelligence and intelligent control and their applications to autonomous driving and vehicle systems and automotive engineering he has authored or co-authored over 200 research publications and holds over 100 us patents
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the ability to analyze the properties of individual cells is vital to broad areas of life science applications from diagnosing diseases and developing better therapeutics to characterizing pathogenic bacteria and developing cells for bioproduction applications however the accurate analysis of individual cells is a challenge especially when it comes to a cells biophysical properties due to large property variations among cells even in the same cell population as well as the presence of rare cell types within a larger population addressing this need dr arum han texas instruments professor ii in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university together with his graduate students and postdoctoral researchers have developed a new technology that can accurately analyze cell properties through the use of a single-cell electrorotation microfluidic device which utilizes an electric field to probe the cells properties the technology works by using an electric field to first capture a single cell in a microfluidic device followed by applying a rotating electric field to rotate the trapped single cell and then measuring the speed of rotation by knowing the input electric field parameters and analyzing the rotation speed accurately analyzing the dielectric properties of a single cell becomes possible by knowing how much force was applied and how fast the cell turns you can extract many basic biophysical properties of cells han said there have been previous efforts to accomplish this but this technology is the most accurate in measuring these properties because of its capability to apply a high-frequency electric field (up to 100 megahertz) and its use of an eight-electrode-pair design to simultaneously trap a single cell and apply rotational force to the trapped cell the research teams findings are featured on the cover of the june 2022 issue of the journal biomedical microdevices
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this technology has been fully developed and applied to several different cell analysis applications having successfully demonstrated that analysis can be accurately completed on one cell at a time yuwen li graduate student in hans lab and the lead author of the work is now leading the effort to further develop the technology so that this can be executed at a much higher speed and against many cells simultaneously other contributors to this research are postdoctoral researcher can huang and research scientist songi han from the electrical and computer engineering department this project was funded through a cooperative agreement with the us army combat capabilities development command army research laboratory facilitated through the texas a&m engineering experiment station
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a research duo in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering is discovering how men and women adapt differently in fatiguing work situations by looking at their brains doctoral student oshin tyagi and texas a&m university associate professor dr ranjana mehta received the human factors prize during the 2022 human factors and ergonomics society (hfes) annual meeting in october the award recognized their research on equity and inclusivity titled uncovering neuromuscular fatigue difference in older women and men: shedding light on causal brain dynamics our research highlights the importance of studying work capabilities of vulnerable demographics and the usefulness of using a neuroergonomics approach to do so tyagi said i am thrilled that this work received recognition i hope findings here generate interest in understanding the impact of fatiguing work on different demographic groups in cognitively and physically demanding environments tyagi and mehta aimed to uncover sex-based differences in neuromotor strategies adopted by older adults during fatiguing tasks due to a historical bias in human subject studies to only include male participants to represent an entire population or a failure to include sex in the statistical model numerous workplace design parameters do not accommodate female work capacities especially when workers conduct fatiguing tasks this is concerning given that the pre-pandemic labor participation rates are higher for women than for men mehta said citing a 2021 report from the us bureau of labor statistics using data from a study funded by the national institutes of health the duo worked with 59 men and women ages 65 years and older to study fatiguing and motor performance outcomes as participants completed a repetitive handgrip fatiguing task the researchers also collected 24/7 physical activity data for days before the experiment to ensure results did not skew from routine physical activity or sleep behaviors mehta said this is where most studies in the past have stopped in measuring how fatigue impacts neuromuscular health however tyagi and mehta went further they imaged the participants brains using functional near-infrared spectroscopy to assess activation and connectivity patterns between frontal and motor brain regions during the fatiguing task using this integrated brain-behavior approach led to a new observation traditional ergonomic evaluation metrics such as endurance times or strength loss were comparable between older men and women however there were distinct sex-specific neuromotor strategies including causal information flow between frontal and motor regions that signaled reliance on different brain networks in older men versus women these metrics can help researchers identify different tactics men and women choose to adopt when fatigued and facilitate the development of effective and targeted ergogenic strategies that accommodate varying capacities and limitations of diverse worker demographics this information is the key to developing targeted strategies to ensure that workplace tasks and processes remain equitable for different groups of workers tyagi said i hope to build a line of research that extends this work with my independent research program along with research impact mehta said this work is vital to continue elevating awareness of diversity and equity challenges through inclusive research practices among research labs professional societies and institutions i believe that a systematic shift to inclusivity and diversity will be accelerated when the equity/inclusion viewpoint is integrated into our science mehta said thus i am very proud of hfes for elevating equity and inclusivity as a scientific topic
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the human factors prize established in 2010 recognizes excellence in human factors and ergonomics research through an annual competition in which authors are invited to submit papers on a specific topic for that year the topic for the 2022 competition was equity and inclusivity the prize carries a cash award of $5 000 and consideration of publication of the winning paper in the society's flagship journal human factors
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the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university welcomed several new faculty members to its ranks this year please join us in welcoming the newest members of our prestigious faculty listed below tenured and tenure track dr wei gao associate professor gao earned a phd in engineering mechanics from the university of texas at austin his research interests include mechanics of materials multiscale materials modeling surface and interface mechanochemistry and mechanobiology artificial intelligence and machine learning dr aravind krishnamoorthy assistant professor krishnamoorthy earned a phd in materials science from the massachusetts institute of technology his research interests include machine learning computational synthesis of 2d materials excited-state dynamics and multiscale modeling dr matthew powell-palm assistant professor powell-palm earned a phd in mechanical engineering from the university of california berkeley his research interests include materials thermodynamics biological thermodynamics metastable and nonequilibrium states organ and tissue cryopreservation planetary thermodynamics of icy worlds supercooling nucleation and vitrification processes dr yuxiao zhou assistant professor zhou earned a phd in mechanical engineering from pennsylvania state university her research interests include orthopedic device design computational and experimental biomechanics bone regeneration machine learning and mechanobiology dr jingjing (jenny) qiu associate professor qiu earned a phd in industrial and manufacturing engineering from florida state university her research interests include advanced manufacturing nanomaterials synthesis and characterization multifunctional composites sustainable materials and energy harvesting health care and regenerative medicines dr mohsen taheri andani assistant professor andani earned a phd in mechanical engineering from the university of michigan his research interests include additive manufacturing physical and mechanical metallurgy mechanical behaviors of materials and the processing-structure-properties relationships of advanced materials he will join the faculty in fall 2023 academic professional track dr matt elliott instructional associate professor elliot earned a phd in mechanical engineering from texas a&m university dr naveen thomas instructional assistant professor thomas earned a phd in mechanical engineering from texas a&m university dr ravi thyagarajan professor of practice thyagarajan earned a phd in applied mechanics from the california institute of technology dr hai tran instructional assistant professor tran earned a phd in mechanical engineering from the university of south florida
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dr emily pentzer associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering and the department of chemistry at texas a&m university is making 3d-printed polymers more environmentally friendly through a process that allows the polymers to naturally degrade over time pentzers research is a collaborative effort that includes researchers from the texas a&m college of engineering the texas a&m engineering experiment station the texas a&m department of chemistry and the university of kashmirthe research was published in the journal angewandte chemieour goal was to create sustainable degradable polymeric structures pentzer said we did this by leveraging the microstructures afforded by chemistry in conjunction with the macrostructures afforded by 3d printingmost commercial synthetic polymers consist of large molecules that do not break apart under normal conditions when left in the environment manufactured items such as foam cups or plastic containers break down into small pieces that are unseen by the naked eye but the long polymer molecules remain present foreverits not just the plastic bottle being kicked down the road pentzer said these materials break down into microplastics that stay in the environment we dont fully understand the impact of microplastics but theyve been shown to carry diseases heavy metals and fecal bacteriato make the degradable polymers pentzer collaborated with dr don darensbourg distinguished professor in the department of chemistry at texas a&m to use carbon dioxide and table salt to create the ink that was used in the 3d printing process after printing the structures are washed with water to dissolve the salt and solidify the structure while the outside of the structure continues to look smooth the process creates thousands of small pores which allow the chemical compounds to degrade at a quicker rateunder the right conditions the polymers weve created will actually degrade quickly pentzer said ideally theyll break apart into small molecules that are not toxic these smaller molecules wont be able to carry things like heavy metals or bacteriaas the research progresses pentzer hopes to use this process to create packaging materials so that things like boxes and tape can degrade quickly rather than sitting in a landfill for years she also sees a bright future for 3d-printed polymers in the biomedical fieldthese materials can be used for diverse biomedical applications pentzer said things like scaffolds for implants that will degrade over time so your body can heal but you wont have that piece of plastic in you foreverthrough her interdisciplinary research pentzer is seeking to solve a worldwide problem that could have implications on the environment human health biomedicine and almost every aspect of human existenceits kind of like marrying the science with the engineering pentzer said working together we can create synergy and achieve much morethis research was supported by grants from the texas a&m triads for transformation program the welch foundation and the national science foundation
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the texas a&m university college of engineering hosted aggies invent with the theme of solving different problems facing nuclear security the challenge questions were influenced by situations researchers at the los alamos national laboratory confront every day within 48 hours 11 teams researched and developed an idea with the help of mentors from los alamos which they presented to a panel of judges once the event ended teams had the opportunity to transform their idea into a start-up company through the college of engineering's engineering inc program "these are some of the most complex problems we actually have at los alamos we're able to bring these over in an unclassified form and the students are able to attack these and give us really viable solutions " said dr donald quintana division leader for weapons modernization at los alamos and judge for the competition "they're not perfect but at least it gives us that kind of outside-the-box thinking that we're looking for"
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after a lengthy deliberation the judges announced the top three teams to award first place went to the team degenerators their idea was to use a pressure differential to preserve energy and convert it to potential energy so it could be used at any time this idea creates reliable access to power that can be trusted anytime during an emergency we used everyone's best skill and where they were suited to do that particular project i think that really gave us an advantage in the end said senior electrical engineer samuel roth we were able to hone in on what everyone's good at and then bring that all together at the end
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the second-place team ultrabot's goal was to have the ability to scan complex geometries so they created a probe mounted on a robotic arm that would automatically scan and give calculations of models the system simplifies and automates ultrasonic testing of complex parts aggies invent really does prepare you for industry in that it prepares you for how to attack a problem and take on a project efficiently and effectively said junior mechanical engineer jena hopper
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team fog placed third for creating a helmet that tracked radiation in 3d the helmet would be uploaded to an augmented reality headset so you could look around and see where radiation is coming from this could be helpful in laboratories the medical field and nuclear nonproliferation
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dr robin murphy raytheon professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was honored with a women in robotics engineering and science (wires) award for her contributions to disaster robotics and human-robot interaction during the 2022 institute of electrical and electronics engineers/robotics society of japan international conference on intelligent robots and systems (iros) she was one of 35 women from 12 countries to be recognized the conference is one of the largest and most influential conferences in robotics and was held in kyoto japan on oct 23-27 of this year the recipients were honored during a special awards ceremony and given a prize of 20 000 yen murphy has published 18 papers in iros starting in 1989 as a graduate student at georgia tech university back in 1989 there were almost no women in robotics said murphy the ratio was 100 men for every woman in the past 35 years that has changed not only are there many more women but in the wires 35 group you can also see the leadership and accomplishments of these women i am truly honored to be part of this group her papers have mostly reported her groups basic research in autonomously detecting and recovering when a robot is failing and predicting the successful operation of robots and human-robot teams in extreme environments her most recent paper published with dr jason moats director of the texas a&m engineering extension service for iros 2021 presented a model of responsible innovation during disaster response it won an honorable mention for the best paper in ethical robotics from the systems center for human-compatible artificial intelligence at the university of california berkeley and the berkeley existential risk initiative my paper back in 1989 was one of the first things i had published with my advisor and an important first step in my career said murphy i still remember how proud and nervous i was since then nine of my students have published at iros cementing their careers as well i think of this award as really our award view a short retrospective video showing how much robots have changed since 1989 the video shows eight ground marine and aerial robots featured in murphy's iros publications
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dr hung-jen wu associate professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university is working to defeat bacteria that have become resistant to multiple types of antibiotics to achieve interdisciplinary results wu is collaborating with researchers in the texas a&m college of engineering and the texas a&m health science centerthese bacteria are not just drug-resistant they are multidrug-resistant wu said this means several different classes of antibiotics cannot kill them this has become a really big threat to public health because doctors are unable to effectively treat these diseases with the same medications that were used in the pastthe research has been published in advanced therapeutics and acs applied materials & interfacesin the past the medical research community has attempted to defeat antibiotic-resistant bacteria by developing new antibiotics this approach is expensive and can take decades to accomplish wu is taking a different approach by using a targeted system he is delivering the antibiotics directly to the bacteria thus allowing them to have a greater impact on the pathogenby using a targeted delivery system we can actually reduce the dose of the antibiotic and still effectively kill the pathogen wu said the idea to use a targeted approach emerged when researchers observed the behavior of the pathogens they were seeking to kill when bacteria enter the body they use a combination of strong and weak ligand connections to attach to a cell membrane and infect the cell ligands which are molecular connections that exist on both the bacteria and cell membrane allow the two cells to stick to each other by using unique molecular structures wu and his collaborators are exploiting this characteristic of bacteria by using this binding method to efficiently deliver antibiotics directly to the bacteria we noticed how bacteria attached to the host cells strong and weak ligands simultaneously and we wondered how we could use that wu said we were inspired by the bacteria to develop this new drug carrier systemwhile the medical community has tried to use these connections before the effectiveness was low because researchers focused only on strong ligand pairswhat makes our laboratory unique is our focus on the weak ligand pairs wu said while strong ligand pairs are important researchers had trouble finding them on the cell membrane because they are scarce the abundance of weak ligand pairs makes them more effective to deliver medication to the cellto facilitate the targeted delivery wu has engineered molecular ligand structures on the outside of antibiotic particles that bind with the weak ligand pairs on the bacteria cell membrane when an antibiotic particle encounters a bacteria cell the abundance of weak ligand pairs causes the antibiotic particle to adhere to the cell in multiple locations creating a more stable connection this allows for more effective absorption of the antibiotic by the bacteria cell this quick absorption of the antibiotic leads to a more effective destruction of the pathogenwus research has focused on two types of bacteria the bacterium that causes tuberculosis mycobacterium tuberculosis and one of the leading bacterial pathogens which has displayed antibiotic resistance pseudomonas aeruginosa in the future he hopes to apply his method to additional types of bacteria to help slow the spread of other infectious diseasesthis mechanism was designed to work with all types of bacteria wu said when we apply it to other types of bacteria i can quickly identify the ligand pairs we will be able to effectively treat many different types of bacteria with this new toolthis research was supported by grants from the national institutes of health the national science foundation and the men of distinction foundation
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despite advances in medical knowledge and treatments chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease continue to affect certain people in the united states at higher-than-average levels in 2017 the national science foundation (nsf) funded an engineering research center (erc) to address this problem through technology development and outreach four universities partnered on the project and their successes in the last five years have led to a $175 million nsf renewal grant to continue the work the precise advanced technologies and health systems for underserved populations (paths-up) erc is a partnership between texas a&m university the university of california at los angeles rice university and florida international university all four schools work with underserved communities in rural and urban areas of their states with texas a&m as the lead university people hear underserved in the title and automatically think underrepresented said dr gerard coté professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m and head of the paths-up erc a medically underserved person typically lacks good access to health care our underserved also happen to be underrepresented hispanic latinx and african american communities unequal health issue rates over 40% or two-fifths of the american population is obese which leads to heart disease and diabetes among other chronic ailments a close look shows underrepresented populations are at a disadvantage a black child is over 70% more likely to be obese than a white child in normal hispanic communities a childs risk falls to about 60% more than a white child coté said the heart disease and diabetes numbers in underserved and underrepresented communities are higher and usually compounded by low socioeconomic conditions engineering an increased health care reach one paths-up goal is to create innovative robust and affordable technologies engineered to be low-cost accurate and tough enough for use wherever people live for instance the erc is developing a rice-grain-sized device to be injected under the skin that tracks and records blood chemistry levels and changes over time the data is retrieved optically and noninvasively by a watch-like scanner and the injected device remains in place for future scans another device worn on the wrist will monitor pulse body activity and eventually blood pressure without using a cuff the technology will understand the context so a high heart rate during a low movement period would trigger an alert and accurately monitor people of all skin tones and weight ranges a third innovation involves paper embedded with nanoparticles 1 000 times smaller than a human hair that will when combined with a hand-held device analyze and detect specific biomarkers from a drop of blood the ambulance crew for a potential heart attack victim facing a 45-minute ride to the hospital can do an immediate blood test on the patient and do another one 30 minutes later during transport upon arrival the hospital will receive two points of data from the patients history with data points plural we can see trends coté said we can see if the biomarkers for a heart attack are going up or down the current standard of care is to do a blood test when the patient arrives doctors get results back from a lab 30 to 45 minutes later and only have one data point to start from faculty graduate students postdoctoral researchers and undergraduate students are all involved in creating and testing the devices doctors and other medical care providers along with over 20 large and small companies work with paths-up to help get the technology prototyped and taken to the point where the companies can do the final development and manufacturing making medical information part of the culture the second paths-up goal involves recruiting and educating the diverse precollege college and postcollege scientists and engineers needed for developing future technology and improving underserved community health the erc achieves this through communicating with and empowering community leaders students and teachers; health care providers; and university students and faculty communicating with underserved community participants allows paths-up to share medical information in an approachable way empowered teachers create actionable lesson plans on science technology engineering math and health these plans are shared with their students and other schools high school students and teachers interested in engineering and health care are recruited to be a part of the research teams in the four universities where they are mentored by doctoral students doing the research many of these doctoral students join cooperative education programs in the communities and learn more about the people they will care for in the future in turn the center learns whats needed to engineer successful devices from the community whether they speak english or spanish diabetic patients listening to doctors instructions on blood sugar levels might lose track of what to do paths-up engineers work with engineers and behavioral psychologists to develop apps that use visually clear-cut graphics like color-coded ranges and simple if-this-then-that guidelines people can understand future goals currently the universities can only develop technology to a certain point beyond that a company must take over and that transition can be a challenge coté said in the next five years he would like to explore ways to make that path easier by providing more fully developed and tested technologies coté also said that while many of the erc technologies would be useful for other diseases diabetes and cardiovascular diseases are running rampant across the world even in developing countries which calls for more community engagement and communication my biggest joy is working with people from so many different areas of expertise who bring different perspectives to the project coté said it makes rowing the boat in the same direction a challenge but it's also one of the greatest rewards the nsf grant will be administered through the texas a&m engineering experiment station a state agency that solves problems through applied research and development
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the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) elected dr bruce tai among its latest fellows the honor recognizes recipients for their exceptional engineering achievements and contributions to the engineering profession over 3 000 of asme's more than 60 000 active members have attained the distinction of fellow in the organization tai is an associate professor and the gulf oil/thomas a dietz career development professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university and a member of the texas a&m engineering experiment station institute for manufacturing systems he earned his doctoral degree in mechanical engineering from the university of michigan ann arbor in 2011 "i am grateful and it is encouraging to be elected as an asme fellow among so many outstanding researchers and educators worldwide " tai said "the recognition provides great momentum for me to do better and contribute more to our mechanical engineering society and students" tai's research focuses on non-traditional machining processes material removal mechanics and modeling surgical simulation and analysis advanced additive processes for polymers and 3d printing of polymer composites he largely attributes his selection for this honor to his training in manufacturing as a core subject in the field of mechanical engineering tai said manufacturing has applications in various areas including healthcare energy and additive manufacturing this has helped him build a strong track record in research and inspired much of his teaching activities and course development
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students at texas a&m university built an extended reality (xr) flight simulator that could potentially be used by the texas air national guard as a cost-effective training tool for pilots the simulator has been designed to work in conjunction with a mixed-reality deep-immersion headset developed by passenger inc a company out of austin texas after seeing the retro rocket simulator created by students in the department of aerospace engineering and department of mechanical engineering ron maynard ceo and founder of passenger inc connected with dr darren hartl associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering about building the f16 xr flight simulator although hartl works with virtual reality (vr) xr was new territory for him and his students xr is a combination of vr and augmented reality (ar) vr is an immersive experience; think about the headsets gamers use today it uses a computer-generated environment to replace what the user is viewing ar takes a computer-generated view and overlays that onto our reality such as snapchat filters or pokémon go xr lies between these two by blending virtual and physical worlds almost seamlessly allowing the two to interact when youre sitting in the simulator i dont know that you can get any closer to feeling like you are flying an f16 visually and tactically in terms of how you use and see your hands and other features of the experience that we have made said hartl the physical elements of the design include toggle switches functional buttons hotas (hand on throttle and stick) controls rudder pedals and a vibrating seat that immerses the user in the flight there is also a multifunctional display onto which different vr elements can be cast and it serves as a touchscreen all these are fully tactile and pilots can see their own hands as they manipulate each one this is all within the aluminum frame designed by the students to be light portable and modular the simulator also has a virtual landing gear lever controlled by hand tracking so as the user places their hand over the virtual lever it moves accordingly the students also created a vr terrain equipped with pylons for racing agility simulations missiles that the pilot can fire and a fully viewable aircraft around the pilot the purpose was to demonstrate that we can use this for any airframe said jesse cate aerospace engineering student the hand tracking was there to show that we might not even need a full physical cockpit and the touchscreen was also important to show that we could replace the physical components as well if needed this design shows that a system can be built quickly economically and flexibly to give more pilots a chance to stay proficient regarding a range of mission tasks when not at the airfield
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outside the projects outcomes the students gained a unique hands-on experience that elevated their field knowledge and technical skills i had no idea there was anything like this before the retro rocket project started but ever since then ive been really interested in this field so i wanted to join this project said jake schrass aerospace engineering student what can we do with virtual reality what can we do with mixed reality or augmented reality and how does that fit into an aerospace context it also created an opportunity for collaboration when hartl was first approached about the project he reached out to dr ann mcnamara associate dean for research and creative works and professor in the school of performance visualization and fine arts about advising the project together this opened the door for aerospace engineering and visualization students to work together and gain real-world interdisciplinary experience this project represents the excellence that can be achieved through interdisciplinary collaboration; students across aerospace and visualization worked alongside industry professionals to create a truly remarkable highly functional prototype on a minimal budget said mcnamara the results are compelling and impressive demonstrating the high caliber of our students at texas a&m hopefully this is the beginning of future collaborations across disciplinary lines
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the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution sponsored and hosted a professional development workshop for teachers and multidisciplinary engineering technology stem students at texas a&m university that involved robotics and lego bricksthe workshop was organized by dr garth v crosby and taught by dr mohamed gharib both are associate professors in the multidisciplinary engineering technology program gharib is a certified teacher trainer by the lego education academythis workshop was born out of our vision for making an impact in our community crosby said the workshop provided professional development opportunities for the participants to introduce robotics in their school settings
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"as educators we aim to develop human capacity in college station schools the workshop allows undergraduate students and teachers to build their skills in robotics while learning how to teach the subject to young students gharib said our unique science technology engineering and math (stem) education track introduces teachers to high technical skills which will drive students toward an increased interest in science and engineering following the lego education academy approach for teaching which is called learning through play"the workshop introduction to lego education spike prime uses a classroom-friendly robotics kit and software that allows participants to learn through hands-on experience to encourage critical thinking and promote creative confidence it focuses on subjects such as engineering coding and physics using intuitive guides and puts real-world topics in the hands of its participantseveryday engineers create things whether it's a building a software program or a robot said sophia slabic a multidisciplinary engineering technology stem-track student the workshop was very useful in practicing how to facilitate hands-on playful stem learning with students and how i can help grade school students see how it applies to their life and understand they can become an engineer one day
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the robotics workshop at texas a&m was extremely valuable to me as an educator and the sponsor teacher of the oakwood intermediate school robotics club the training allows me to assist our students during our weekly stem sessions said rick velez teacher at oakwood intermediate school my confidence level rose and i feel more than adequate now to continue to sponsor this outstanding club that teaches our students hands-on stem activities" from preschool to junior high and beyond lego education provides the opportunity for its participants to continue learning with playful tools that spark students interests and curiosities and help them further develop skills theyll need to pursue fulfilling careers in stemthis program will present the department of engineering technology and industrial distributions humble contribution to serve the community and inspire younger students " gharib said and give them the motivation to learn about science and engineering
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nurses help millions of people address their physical and mental health but who makes sure the nurses health is taken care of dr farzan sasangohar associate professor in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university aims to better understand systemic contributors to providers mental health issues such as stress anxiety post-traumatic stress disorder and burnout sasangohars research focuses on applying human factors engineering methods to design develop and evaluate complex systems such as health care his latest study used innovative and unconventional ways to evaluate how workloads and other factors could tax intensive care unit nurses cognition and trigger stress events that may lead to burnout over time sasangohars multidisciplinary research team including researchers with clinical psychology and industrial engineering backgrounds used nonintrusive wearable eye tracking and physiological monitoring technologies to collect real data participants in the study were registered nurses in a cardiovascular intensive care unit at houston methodist hospital nurses wore the glasses for the entirety of their 12-hour shift and their physiological reactions to stress were assessed over several shifts the data provided an objective account of tasks conducted identified potential distractions and accurately tracked gaze behavior which sasangohar said is key to understanding mental load we were interested in documenting what external triggers or events lead to stressful events or high workload and how mental health outcomes changed over the duration of a shift sasangohar said we were also interested in differences between the day and night shifts in terms of physical and cognitive loads and stress the research partially funded by a dyer fellowship awarded to sasangohar at houston methodist hospital documented several key relationships between stress and physiological correlates including heart rate and skin temperature and eye metrics such as the number of eye fixations gaze entropy and pupil diameter one interesting finding was the workload did not significantly differ between the day and night shifts while the night shift involved relatively fewer social and team-related activities the effects of drowsiness might have made the workload equivalent to the day shift the unique dataset collected in this study may pave the way for further research to support nurses work the eye tracking data collected covering the entire shift of more than 20 nurses provides a unique opportunity to understand the context of care and has implications beyond mental health sasangohar said for example the data can be used for task and teamwork training quality improvement workflow analysis among other purposes this research has been published in two separate articles in human factors: the journal of the human factors and ergonomics society: quantifying workload and stress in intensive care unit nurses: preliminary evaluation using continuous eye-tracking quantifying occupational stress in intensive care unit nurses: an applied naturalistic study of correlations among stress heart rate electrodermal activity and skin temperature sasangohars next steps involve using some of his teams recent advancements in objective measurements of cognitive and physical stress to design and evaluate remote and continuous stress monitoring and self-management tools for nurses health care is one of the most complex and difficult work environments that we will all interact with and benefit from at some point he said the covid-19 pandemic has taken a significant toll among health care providers and has resulted in an alarming increase in mental health issues im passionate about this vulnerable population and im glad my research will potentially improve their well-being
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the american society of heating refrigerating and air-conditioning engineers (ashrae) awarded the 2022 louise and bill holladay distinguished fellow award to dr david claridge claridge who was named an ashrae fellow in 2008 serves as a professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university and director of the energy systems laboratory of the texas a&m engineering experiment station he also serves as the interim director of the architectural engineering program in the department of multidisciplinary engineering the award is among the highest bestowed by ashrae recognizing one engineer for their continued preeminence in engineering or research "i am honored and humbled to be presented with the louise and bill holladay distinguished fellow award and to join the incredibly distinguished group of previous recipients " said claridge claridge said his contributions to the field in continuous commissioning® have had the most impact on energy use to date he also believes his current work on refrigerant-free dehumidification and air conditioning will likely have the most long-term impact "it is deeply satisfying to feel we have helped existing building commissioning save energy all over the country and the world and to see membrane dehumidification getting close to a real application " said claridge "it has been a privilege to work with so many talented students engineers and faculty over the years at the energy systems laboratory i want to thank them for their critical contribution to these efforts" founded in 1894 ashrae is an organization of over 50 000 members dedicated to building systems energy efficiency indoor air quality refrigeration and sustainability within the heating refrigerating and air-conditioning industry
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dr xuejun zhu assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a $17 million grant from the national institute of general medical sciences (nigms) a branch of the national institutes of health the grant will support her research on discovering and developing new pharmaceuticals and therapeutic alternatives to address and combat the rapid emergence of drug resistancethe new funding allows zhu to study and discover synergistic antibiotics or pharmaceuticals by identifying and using naturally occurring resources such as microbes to maximize the potential of currently available drugs combined this type of drug cocktail is an attractive approach to addressing and combating drug resistancezhu notes that the trial-and-error cycle of combining antibiotics is tedious and often results in an ineffective drug cocktail she said that many antibiotics are produced by many natural microbes that never have a drug resistance problem so those microbes need some solution to fight against those resistant antibioticszhus project titled discovery and development of drug cocktails designed by nature outlines two research directions that could lead to the discovery of effective drug cocktail recipes that combat drug resistance the project would also provide fundamental insights into the design rules of combination therapy and address challenges in producing these compoundsthe discovery of co-produced and synergistic natural products remains difficult because it is challenging to predict co-produced natural products based on the genomes of the microbes that synthesize them its also challenging due to their complex chemical structuresi expect our findings will provide some insights on how to design synergistic antibiotics that help fight the antibiotic resistance crisis and i hope we can also provide effective production strategies for making those good antibiotics zhu said zhu was awarded the maximizing investigators research award (mira) grant from nigms mira enhances an investigators scientific productivity and the chances for important breakthroughs by providing stability and flexibility for the research in their laboratory during the five-year granti feel very honored to receive this grant because i can focus more maximize my research productivity and recruit a talented team to further this exciting research zhu said
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the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university is home to renowned faculty who continually strive for excellence listed below are just a few of the many honors and recognitions they have received so far in 2022 dr robert ambrose j mike walker ‘66 chair professor american society of mechanical engineers (asme) thomas a edison patent award dr david claridge professor american society of heating refrigerating and air-conditioning engineers louise and bill holladay distinguished fellow award dr ali erdemir halliburton chair in engineering professor european academy of science and arts member dr james hubbard oscar s wyatt jr ‘45 chair i professor asme adaptive structures and materials systems award; national academy of inventors (nai) fellow dr ying li professor and pioneer natural resources faculty fellow iii fellow of the royal society of chemistry dr andreas polycarpou james j cain '51 chair professor nai senior member dr kumbakonam rajagopal jm forysth chair professor asme worcester reed warner medal dr jn reddy odonnell foundation chair iv professor international association of computational mechanics congress medal dr luis san andres mast-childs chair professor asme aircraft engine technology award dr arun srinivasa holdredge/paul professor asme ben c sparks medal dr bruce tai associate professor and gulf oil/thomas a dietz career development professor asme fellow dr pablo tarazaga professor asme fellow dr ya wang associate professor and leland t jordan career development professor asme fellow dr lesley wright associate professor and jana and quentin a baker 78 faculty fellow asme fellow; american institute of aeronautics and astronautics associate fellow
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researchers at texas a&m university are working to design a longer-term organ-on-chip (vessel-chip) system a 3d cell-culture model that mimics living organs' biological activities this will increase understanding of the progression and signs of atherosclerosis (acd) the buildup of fats and/or cholesterol in and on artery walls and drug-tissue interactions in both astronauts and earthbound humans since age and radiation exposure are powerful risk factors for acd in both astronauts and earthbound humans the primary focus of this research is to model these stressors and associated therapeutics by using human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hipsc) and immune cells by monitoring and capturing dynamic events over a period of several months the team can track the progression of acd with high physiological relevance and precision that cannot be provided by current preclinical experimental systems for the first time we will be able to validate our hipsc-vessel-chip for the prolonged modeling of a healthy blood vessel followed by an assessment of cellular and proton radiation stressors and of mrna therapeutics said dr abhishek jain associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering we want to understand how aging and radiation may result in acd in both astronauts and earthbound humansthe research team includes dr john cooke dr nhat-tu le and dr guangyu wang at houston methodist research institute and dr vladislav yakovlev professor of biomedical engineering at texas a&mthese vessel-chip systems offer a promising in vitro modeling platform where current systems may fall short including the most relevant hipsc-derived cells and the ability to perform long-term investigations all in a clinically relevant hemodynamic microenvironment the team plans to achieve these goals in two phases in the first phase the researchers will use the existing vessel-chip resembling human arterial dimensions and cyclic hemodynamics they will continuously monitor physiological parameters and sustain the culture of hipsc-derived endothelial cells (hipsc-ec) and vascular smooth muscle cells [ad2] (hipsc-smc) for a few months the plan in the second phase will be to introduce ipsc [ad3] cells from patients with progeria a genetic disorder causing children to age rapidly who also exhibit symptoms of acd the team will expose the vessel-chip to radiation and test novel mrna therapy in the system for months of observationthe organ-on-chip technology of blood vessels has been transformational over the last decade but in the context of modeling acd the significance of our system is the inclusion of hipsc endothelial cells smooth muscle cells immune cells pulsatile hemodynamics and relevant humoral factors in an anatomical architecture and tracking performance over a long period jain said the maximum duration such vessel systems have performed does not exceed two to three weeks and this system will outperform most others in terms of stability and longevitythis proposition will produce a platform technology to deploy in future human clinical trials for vascular diseases this chip also has broader value because the insights garnered regarding mrna delivery to the vessel wall will be useful for vascular targeting of other rna therapeutics going forward including gene editing another opportunity would be to use hipscs from different racial and ethnic patient groups and characterize those differences in response to stressors of vascular health since this disparity in acd is known an interesting future prospect with this device would be to test how robust the model is when additional subject variables are added to the model including intraluminal pressure or tobacco condensate from burning tobacco as these variables are often associated with acd disease in elderly patients jain said this research is jointly funded by nasa the national institutes of health the food and drug administration and the biomedical advanced research and development authority read more about this program on the nasa website
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the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university continues to seek new ways to help financially support graduate students the department is excited to award inaugural fellowships to two doctoral students these fellowships have a positive impact on our students said dr lewis ntaimo department head they are valuable to alleviate living and other expenses on our graduate students so they can focus on their academics
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oshin tyagi received the dr milden j fox jr 69 and mary p fox 73 fellowship and incoming student samantha hopkins received the inaugural barnes doctoral scholarship tyagis award rewards graduate students who are active participants in the department and are in good academic standing she is a member of the neuroergonomics lab at texas a&m this will definitely help alleviate some of that financial burden and help me be self-sufficient tyagi said it's not very easy being a grad student especially for international students because our only source of income can be through the university dr ranjana mehta associate professor in the department and the director of the neuroergonomics lab nominated tyagi for the award as her faculty advisor in addition to the rigor and discipline she applies to her science she is committed to equity and inclusivity in her approach toward research teaching and service activities mehta said her leadership technical competency and passion are the characteristics that make her the ideal candidate for this fellowship which also represents the best of our department tyagi also received a $10 000 grant from the southwest center for occupational and environmental health pilot projects research training program funded by the national institute for occupational safety and health the program supports novel research ideas by new faculty and senior graduate students planning a career in academia tyagi will serve as principal investigator of a yearlong research project to investigate the role of exoskeletons in reducing back injuries in occupations such as emergency response and health care in this context exoskeletons are devices worn by people to enhance and support physical capabilities more news on this project will be shared as the research moves forward
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hopkins award recognizes students with excellent potential for academic success and those with exceptional research aptitude her research will focus on mitigating college students' mental health by developing and evaluating effective self-management tools and digital therapeutics there's currently a huge uptick in mental health issues especially with covid and people being isolated hopkins said dr farzan sasangohar hopkins faculty advisor and associate professor in the department nominated her having observed many excellent phd students in our program succeed i believe that the secret ingredient for academic success is the passion for the problem being addressed by research sasangohar said samanthas excellent academic record industry work experience curiosity and passion for addressing mental health an important societal issue will fuel her academic thriving and makes her worthy of the barnes doctoral scholarship hopkins also received the college of engineering graduate merit fellowship awarded to only one incoming doctoral student in the department
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dr alexandra alex walsh assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has received the national institutes of health maximizing investigators research award (nih mira r35) grant for her research on autofluorescence lifetime imaging the goal of our work is to create a robust platform technology for label-free imaging of cellular and mitochondrial metabolism said walsh this technology is useful for improving our knowledge of how metabolic heterogeneity within and across cell populations contribute to health disease and the discovery and evaluation of new drugs the potential benefits include a better understanding of how anesthesia drugs work and improved drugs and therapies for metabolic diseases such as cancer diabetes and neurodegeneration cellular-level metabolic information is necessary across multiple scientific disciplines from nutrition and cancer biology to drug discovery with this grant walsh hopes to advance autofluorescence technologies used for imaging cellular metabolism and robustly validate the technology and image analysis tools so that it can be easily adopted by other researchers she also hopes to use metabolic imaging technologies to evaluate the effects of anesthesia on cellular metabolism there are currently gaps in scientific understanding of how anesthesia drugs function in cells and living organisms a deeper understanding of these processes may lie within metabolic imaging the nih mira r35 grant is awarded by the national institute of general medical sciences to give investigators greater stability and flexibility by providing five years of funding for their research vision the grant is awarded to a single principal investigator rather than several collaborators rather than identifying specific research aims the grant emphasizes the field that the individual researcher works in the gaps present in that field and how the grant recipient is situated to address those gaps walshs research areas include optical microscopy label-free imaging fluorescence lifetime and cellular metabolism
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cellular metabolism optical imaging means we use light to capture images of cells and tissues said walsh specifically we look at cellular metabolism which is the process that cells use to generate energy from sugar during that process cells use molecules called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (nadh) and flavin adenine dinucleotide (fad) nadh and fad serve as energy carriers so that reactions can occur both molecules already present in cells also have a physical phenomenon called fluorescence where they give off light when shined with the light of the correct color wavelength typically fluorescence imaging requires fluorescent labels or dyes to provide contrast walsh uses the fluorescence of molecules innately within tissues or autofluorescence as contrast she and her student researchers can detect differences in cells without adding contrast agents or dyes as nadh and fad provide the contrast this technology is further explained by a paper published in the journal jove in addition to measuring the intensity or brightness of the fluorescence walsh and her team measure the fluorescence lifetime or the time between the fluorescence photon absorption and emission currently autofluorescence lifetime imaging is excellent at detecting relative changes between two groups and can provide specific information about nadh and fad enzyme-binding states but pinpointing specific changes in metabolic pathways from the autofluorescence imaging is more complicated the information we get in the imaging will change if cells use different substrates or different types of molecules to make energy she said if their rates change then our quantitative information changes there's still a gap for a robust model that can take what we measure with the label-free imaging and then predict what happened metabolically within the cell the grant focuses on combining autofluorescence lifetime imaging with machine learning we're trying to create models that can predict more specific metabolic information from the nadh and fad fluorescence imaging metrics walsh said preliminary results since receiving the grant walsh and her doctoral student linghao hu have developed some exciting results with models that can predict whether a cell is using oxidative phosphorylation or glycolysis from the autofluorescence metrics its helpful if we can infer more information about metabolic pathway use or mitochondrial-specific metabolism from label-free imaging we are working on computational models to achieve that goal we are now testing the model across different cells and contexts and will soon try adding complexity to predict additional metabolic states said walsh since starting her research group in the biomedical engineering department at texas a&m walsh has also received the air force office of scientific research (afosr) young investigator award and an afosr defense university research instrumentation program award to fund her research she is a scialog advancing bioimaging fellow and this year was awarded a collaborative advanced biomedical imaging grant with johannes schöneberg from the chan zuckerberg initiative donor advised fund an advised fund of the silicon valley community foundation she also serves as the cain development faculty fellow in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m
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guiding a drill bit through the earth with the same cutting-edge automation used for steering airplanes and cars is currently impossible because dense subsurface materials slow the speed of any transmitted instructions down to a crawl two recent texas a&m university engineering graduates are bypassing this slowdown with an advanced smart tool that processes sensor data renders subsurface models maps a route and steers the drilling all while sitting down hole behind the drill bit drs enrique losoya 22 and narendra vishnumolakala 22 had the idea for the device while they were graduate students together with another student connor ust they founded their own company teale engineering llc in 2020 to take on the challenge of creating their product in 2021 teale received a phase i grant of $256 000 nondilutive seed capital from the national science foundations (nsf) small business technology program the objective of phase i was to perform research prove the technical feasibility and build the proof-of-concept hardware and software needed said losoya the former students enlisted dr eduardo gildin lf peterson 36 professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering; sheelabhadra dey a doctoral student in the department of computer science and engineering; and former student paul deere 92 an accomplished innovator and expert in downhole and measurement-while-drilling technology as the research team for the project currently drillers steer drill bits using a bottom hole assembly that contains a bias or bend the drill string the pipe attached to the assembly is pushed down on from above and constantly rotated to make the bit go straight down if the drill string is not rotated the bit will drill in the direction of the bias drillers know which way a bit is heading by following a tracker in the assembly they direct the bit by reading reservoir models or maps generated by computers using data from subsurface sensors unfortunately the sensor data is transmitted up through thousands of feet of rock and other materials to reach those computers while modern commercial cellular transmissions can travel up to 10 000 000 000 bits or 10 gigabits per second through air or space the earths subsurface slows those speeds down to a stunning 2 to 6 bits per second drilling using models is somewhat like blindly driving a car in the dark with only the instructions on the dashboard screen to guide you said gildin who serves as the teams technical advisor slow transmission speeds mean those instructions take a while to produce the team is putting the tool downhole to be as close as possible to the sensors that way it can process the data and model a map in near real time putting the device right behind the drill bit also means it can steer with faster reaction times several obstacles stood in the way of their product first the team had to build a physical device small enough to fit in the space behind a drill bit yet big enough to hold all the hardware second they had to produce the software needed for processing and rendering the sensor data third they had to create animated simulations to train their tools machine-learning algorithms how to understand its unique view of the reservoir and model as a car driver would if looking through a 360-degree windshield and how to manipulate the drill string behind it plus the tool had to look at the reservoir model the way a driller would with production needs and safety issues as the top destinations and priorities
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for the first prototype the former students borrowed what they could from off-the-shelf hardware while creating a lot of software gildin and dey helped develop the reinforcement-learning algorithms needed for the tool to understand how to correctly judge the best drilling course and bit speeds from the models losoya and vishnumolakala created the virtual environment and real-time linearized model simulations necessary for testing the learning algorithms abilities the work was done on teales servers and texas a&m supercomputers under gildins guidance dey said the custom drilling simulators were developed using popular simulation engines like the unity physics engine a mature 3d development platform typically used for video games several months of trial and error eventually led to successful lab tests but the work is far from over now that the simulations and algorithms work the team must replace all the off-the-shelf technology with more robust equipment that can handle the harsh conditions downhole we are seeking a phase ii grant from the nsf said losoya thats where we scale refine and focus on developing a field-ready intelligent prototype and product costs are higher as we experiment with new configurations and materials said deere the teams executive and commercialization advisor we will work with the large downhole tool providers we know to scale our production so we can provide a smart and affordable product for operators i am excited to help commercialize this research and expect it will greatly impact the directional drilling market if the team can produce an economical product smart enough to follow the best drilling routes every time the tool could make drilling oil and geothermal wells more accurate more profitable and far safer losoya and vishnumolakala both graduated with masters degrees in petroleum engineering and doctoral degrees in multidisciplinary engineering from texas a&m gildin who mentored them during their time in petroleum engineering pointed out how rare this opportunity is this is a tangible project where a product is developed gildin said its a side of research few students get to see because most research is scholarly because this project has strong research components losoya vishnumolakala dey and gildin are producing a paper on the phase i work that is slated for publication in 2023
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two students in the department of materials science and engineering won both of the 2022 college of engineering outstanding graduate student awards tianyang zhou was named outstanding engineering phd graduate student and alex strasser was named outstanding engineering ms graduate studentestablished in 2012 this award recognizes one masters student and one doctoral student who have demonstrated excellence above and beyond usual levels of achievement awardees must be in good academic standing with a minimum cumulative and degree plan gpa of at least 375zhou is performing vital research that addresses the immediate need for improved efficiency in aerial and ground vehicles by developing structural energy storage materials that can simultaneously bear mechanical loads and store electrical energy she is pursuing her doctoral degree under the co-advisement of dr dimitris lagoudas associate vice chancellor for engineering research and dr james boyd associate professor of aerospace engineeringi am extremely honored to receive this prestigious award in recognition of my research teaching and mentoring efforts during my phd said zhou i would not be where i am today without the ever-present support and help from my advisors my mentors my peers and my students receiving this award motivates me to achieve more and provide more to the field and the communityin addition to her research she has excelled in both teaching and mentoring roles for undergraduate and graduate students she was selected as a graduate teaching fellow a competitive collegewide position and subsequently became an instructor of record
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tianyang has made key contributions to the field of structural storage devices during her phd work and at the same time she has developed skills as a successful peer mentor to her fellow students always willing to help others grow following the aggie core values of excellence and selfless service said lagoudas tianyang has benefited from the collaborative research effort on multifunctional storage devices coordinated by dr jodie lutkenhaus and supported by the air force office of scientific researchstrasser has a bachelors degree in chemical engineering from texas a&m and plans to pursue a phd in physics his research interests are primarily in the functional properties of 2d materials dr xiaofeng qian associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering serves as strassers faculty advisorstrasser has presented at eight scientific conferences has one first-author publication and has co-authored five others on topics including computing nonlinear optical properties experimental synthesis and characterization of 2d materials and nanocompositesin addition strasser has research interests in the philosophies of physics religion and ethics and has presented at three philosophy conferences he is also highly active in effective altruism for christians which investigates and promotes how to do the most good with ones money and career
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while i find the process of scientific discovery intrinsically fascinating and motivating since it helps reveal the fundamental nature of the world as well as the nature of god (as so many founding scientists also believed) i am thankful to the college for their recognition of my research contributions said strasser i am honored to be chosen for this award and i am grateful to my advisor dr qian for the research opportunities and mentorship he has providedalex strasser is a very talented and self-motivated student with deep curiosity about fundamental science said qian through extensive advanced electronic structure calculations and highly nontrivial group theoretical analyses alex discovered that janus structuring can effectively break mirror symmetry of two-dimensional materials and enable strong nonlinear optical and photocurrent responses this offers a unique approach for developing ultrathin chiral linear and nonlinear optical platforms with out-of-plane photocurrent responses that are often lacking in their pristine counterpartthese awards were created by the college of engineering to recognize students who demonstrate exceptional dedication and tenacity in their research and academic studies
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dr daniel a jiménez professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university received a best paper award at the 2022 institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee)/association for computing machinery international symposium on microarchitecture (micro) held in chicago in october jiménez co-authored the award-winning paper whisper: profile-guided branch misprediction elimination for data center applications with baris kasikci tanvir ahmed khan and muhammed ugur from the university of michigan; krishnendra nathella and dam sunwoo from arm research; and heiner litz from the university of california santa cruz two papers were selected to receive the award out of 83 accepted to micro in the paper the researchers focused on branch prediction a technology that enables high-performance microprocessors they introduced technology that improves performance and reduces energy consumption for data center computing one of the most widely used and energy-intensive applications of computing technology "the paper demonstrates how to use a special kind of boolean formula to predict hard branches increasing the effective capacity of modern branch predictors said jiménez jiménez received his doctoral degree in computer sciences from the university of texas at austin and his masters degree in computer science and bachelors degree in computer science and systems design from the university of texas at san antonio he has been honored with the 2021 b ramakrishna rau award from the ieee computer society and the high-performance computer architecture test of time award for his previous work in branch prediction he is an ieee fellow micro is one of the top computer architecture conferences that brings together researchers from fields related to compliers systems microarchitecture and chips to present discuss and debate innovative ideas and techniques for communications systems and advanced computing
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on nov 8 the texas a&m university college of engineering hosted a dinner and celebration in honor of its first-generation students as of fall 2022 texas a&m has over 12 000 first-generation students over 3 300 of them are in engineering to help first-generation students assimilate into college life seamlessly with the help of those who have been in their shoes before the college of engineering offers programs like the first-generation engineering students mentoring program (fgen) the college offers several support systems for these students through scholarships our mentoring program and services provided by the office of access and inclusion said dr harry hogan senior associate dean for academic affairs beyond that our faculty staff and industry partners are very committed to supporting this community as well and we appreciate all the generous support by our donors to the fgen program jim wilkes 78 president director and co-owner of texland petroleum was a guest speaker at the dinner celebration he shared his experiences as a first-generation student and what led him to become a petroleum engineer my parents did not expect to advance their studies beyond a high school diploma said jim we were from a small town in southwestern missouri where very few people had college degrees at 12 years old jim left missouri for tulsa oklahoma there he had his first interaction with an engineer: his stepfather an electrical engineer from new mexico state university who worked for general electric we moved to tulsa then to dallas then to houston and this enabled me to attend spring woods high school said jim it was a great school for two reasons: i met becky there and i had a great education that prepared me for success at texas a&m we had a counselor that encouraged becky and me to apply for scholarships in engineering then during my senior year i received a call from the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m they offered me a scholarship and it made choosing engineering easy jim graduated from texas a&m in 1978 and received many job offers as it was a prime time in the oil and gas industry he credits his degree and mentors for the success that followed him up to this point in my years at texland i have been part of a great company with many fine people that have mentored and educated me about how to manage an oil and gas company said jim
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jim reflected on the pride he felt as a first-generation student who with his wife began generations of higher education in his family becky wilkes ‘78 former student in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering also spoke at the dinner to reflect on her perspective and the different direction her degree took her i didnt expect to be here after my lifes trajectory said becky i once read a statement that stuck with me: ‘every decision you make is a step toward the person you are becoming so many of our decisions seem insignificant when we make them and if you have goals you are either moving toward them or away from them there is no other choice beckys parents were both first-generation students who earned their degrees later in life after having children seeing her parents work hard and earn their degrees changed the direction of beckys life and her familys all too soon you will graduate and you will have to decide where you work and determine which values will make it a reality said becky the decision to be where you want to be in the future depends on the choices you make today after spending some time in the industry becky chose to be a stay-at-home mom she expressed love for her education being an aggie and working in the industry for the time she did she credited her degree for allowing her to master hard concepts and persevere through the challenges she faced texas a&ms college of engineering recognizes the system barriers in higher education that first-generation students face transitioning to college is hard and the fgen program has significantly impacted students' college careers students are encouraged to join and faculty staff and students are encouraged to become mentors with the fgen program
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dr george m pharr professor and erle nye 59 chair i in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university was recently named a 2022 university distinguished professor the designation of university distinguished professor is the highest faculty honor at texas a&m and was awarded to only six faculty members in 2022 the distinction is given to faculty members who are considered pre-eminent in their field and have made transformational contributions to their discipline this honor is very meaningful to me pharr said i am very appreciative of what the university has done for me pharr came to texas a&m in 2017 after working for 18 years at rice university in houston and 18 years in a joint faculty appointment at the university of tennessee and oak ridge national laboratory texas a&m recruited him through the chancellors research initiative and the governors university research initiative (guri) the guri recruits distinguished researchers from outside texas and provides grant funding for their institutions to bring experienced and accomplished researchers and professors into the state pharr received a doctorate in materials science and engineering from stanford in 1979 in 2014 he was elected to the national academy of engineering throughout his 40 years of research he has focused on measuring material strength at the nanoscale the method he pioneered has been named nanoindentation nanoindentation is the process by which a very sharp diamond is pushed into an object with nanoscale dimensions pharr said the diamond is pushed into the object until it deforms or breaks which determines the strength of the nanoscale object in his five years at texas a&m pharr has already made a large impact on the university and the department of materials science and engineering i consider him the father of nanoindentation said dr ibrahim karaman department head of the department of materials science and engineering he has made a significant impact on the growth and depth of research in our department nanoindentation was initially developed for electronics in the 1990s the importance of nanoindentation grew with the boom of the semiconductor industry semiconductors use silicon wafers with very thin films to create the chips used in many electronics such as computers phones and watches as the use of electronics grew in the 1990s pharr assisted with the creation of a thin film that covers the disks in hard drives the magnetic material on these disks where data is stored is extremely sensitive and prone to breaking to write or read information on the disk the read head must be very close to the disk just a few nanometers away without pharrs knowledge of nanoindentation any slight bump or jostle could cause the disk and stored data to be damaged when the read head impacts it to solve this problem pharr assisted with the development of a thin film that protects the disk during development his technique was the only method that could accurately determine the hardness of the extremely thin film the film had to be thin enough to not impact storage density but hard enough to protect the magnetic material pharr said nanoindentation is now used in many industries including health care recently researchers used the technique to study changes in cancerous cells when a cell becomes cancerous its stiffness changes this change can be measured to determine if an individual cell is cancerous in addition to pursuing his research pharr has taught university students for more than 40 years for his contributions to the materials science and engineering field pharr has received many honors including the inaugural innovation in materials characterization award (2010) given by the materials research society and the nadai medal (2018) from the american society of mechanical engineers in 2021 pharr received the william d nix award from the minerals metals and materials society for his development of nanoindentation and fundamental contributions to the field of contact mechanics he is a fellow of the american society of metals international (1995) the materials research society (2012) and the minerals metals & materials society (2016) since 1990 he has served as an associate editor of the journal of the american ceramic society and principal editor of the journal of materials research since 2012 with his vast experience and many accolades pharrs passion for his research and making a difference has only grown i hope to continue to be active in my research pharr said i still very much enjoy what i do
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the stars recently aligned at texas a&m university with multiple representatives from nasa visiting campus to share their stories with students faculty and staff the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering hosted its first nasa day on nov 2 students and faculty had multiple opportunities to meet and learn from the nasa representatives experts brought a spacesuit model and a virtual reality simulation of walking on the moons south pole that students could interact with in the simulation they had the ability to virtually move rocks drive a rover and climb a ladder to the lunar module we have simulations of the different mission functions like flying the jet pack driving the rover on the lunar surface and exploring different robot dynamics said asher lieberman systems engineering simulator manager in the software robotics and simulation division at johnson space center all those models and dynamics need to have very high fidelity so we can train and practice space dynamics on earth that way there arent any surprises when they get in orbit erin maddix industrial and systems engineering senior at texas a&m said she heard about the event and wanted to come to learn as much as possible human factors and ergonomics is my focus maddix said ive been trying to gain as much experience as possible before i graduate with my bachelors degree nasa is doing a lot of cool stuff that will involve human factors in the future and i wanted to learn more about it as well as meet some current employees to ask them about their experiences i'm excited the department was able to get so many people down here
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dr lewis ntaimo department head said events like nasa day are important to show the variety of careers industrial and systems engineering students can pursue we have several former students working at nasa today ntaimo said showing our students what kinds of career opportunities are open to them at nasa is valuable and we hope to host similar events in the future a panel of five experts spoke with students about their career journeys to nasa offered advice and answered student questions the panel members included: elmer bubba johnson 83 occupational safety manager specializing in program assessment security and fire operations ronald lee 86 chief of nasas office of emergency management at the johnson space center asher lieberman systems engineering simulator manager in the software robotics and simulation division at the johnson space center mike mcfarlane chief simulation and graphics branch eddie paddock virtual reality technical discipline lead i would tell you all that if nasa or working in space is something you want to do it's been a great 36 years for me lee said im excited about what i've been able to do and what i've been a part of
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all members of the panel encouraged students not to hesitate to apply for positions at nasa that theyre interested in some examples of avenues included internships and contract work mcfarlane for example worked as an intern while he was an undergraduate student and said the experience benefited him greatly it was so valuable to come to nasa and sit down next to some of the smartest people in the world and see how they went about attacking these problems so that we could fly in space successfully mcfarlane said at the end of the day that's what engineers are we're problem solvers daniel levi industrial and systems senior at texas a&m said he appreciated that the panelists shared their different backgrounds and the paths they took to get to nasa it was cool to hear all the stories about contracting and that there's a lot of different pathways to get there levi said it doesnt matter where you start youre going to end up at the same place and work on all these really cool projects
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dr lesley wright is among the latest class of associate fellows for the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) the honor recognizes recipients for their exceptional engineering achievements and contributions to the engineering profession the distinction of associate fellow recognizes the contribution of important engineering or scientific work advancing the arts sciences or technology of aeronautics or astronautics according to the aiaa wright is associate professor and holder of the jana and quentin a baker 78 career development professorship in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university she is also a member of the texas a&m engineering experiment station's turbomachinery laboratory and the center for advanced small modular and micro nuclear reactors she earned her doctoral degree in mechanical engineering from texas a&m in 2006 "being selected as an aiaa associate fellow is an honor and a blessing " wright said "the recognition is based on outstanding contributions to the field of aeronautics and astronautics it is a great feeling for experts within my community to recognize our research group's sustained high-quality work" wright's research focuses on gas turbine cooling and heat transfer convective cooling technology heat transfer enhancement and heat transfer and fluid mechanics experimentation she primarily attributes her selection for this honor to her work improving the performance of gas turbine engines particularly in developing cooling technology in the hopes of increasing both power production and efficiency
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howdyhack is a 24-hour beginner-friendly hackathon where students from texas a&m university compete by brainstorming building hacking then submitting their product to a panel of judges to potentially win a variety of prizes jordan deshan lauren kerno and stefanus komala-noor from multidisciplinary engineering technology and dawson brown from electronic systems engineering technology won second place in the hackathon for their work on bitwise boogie the dancing robot
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after an hour of brainstorming brown and komala-noor contributed to the robot's frame by sketching designs and determining the type of frame they wanted deshan and kerno focused on software design and inverse kinematics to determine the motion the robot should take to reach each desired position "we knew we wanted to build a robot because robots stand out at hackathons so we expanded that to a hexapod a six-legged robot " deshan said "i had most of the electronics at my house where we built the robot and we substituted with scrap for the rest of the parts we needed but didn't have" "everybody in our group enjoys getting together and making new things especially with robotics and programming brown said the howdyhack was predominantly a software hackathon so we were happy to have been able to place with the hardware project the hackathon was a fun opportunity to gain experience and challenge ourselves by making something we were only given 24 hours from start to finish to conceptualize design and build our project" beyond hacking howdyhack is about connecting aggies with other creative and talented engineers it's an opportunity for hackers to share their skills and capabilities with fellow hackers to share insights and learn new skills "this was an educational experience our main goal was to learn and apply something new about the software and hardware we had on hand " brown said "we looked around the room grabbed what we could and made something out of it" the future of bitwise boogie is to refine the inverse kinematics to perform complex movements and operations such as exploring dangerous environments with unparalleled mobility going where wheeled robots or drones cannot and executing autonomous missions on a predetermined schedule or with the push of a button
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the us nuclear regulatory commission (nrc) has docketed abilene christian universitys (acu) nuclear energy experimental testing (next) lab construction permit application placing it under formal regulatory review the application is the first for a new research reactor in more than 30 years and the first-ever for an advanced university research reactor acu is the lead university in the next research alliance (nextra) which includes texas a&m university the university of texas at austin (ut austin) and the georgia institute of technology (georgia tech) nextra has a $305 million research agreement with natura resources to design and build a university-based molten salt research reactor this is a significant achievement and i am very proud of the nextra team for producing a quality application sufficient for nrc docketing said dr rusty towell director of the next lab and professor in the department of engineering and physics at acu "our nextra consortium is a very unique effort and we at texas a&m are very fortunate to work with our colleagues at acu ut austin and georgia tech supporting the acu effort to build this research reactor and set up programs around the facility once operational " said dr pavel tsvetkov texas a&m project lead and associate professor in the department of nuclear engineering after receipt of the construction permit application in august the nrc conducted a thorough acceptance review the application is now formally docketed and the nrc will begin a detailed safety and environmental review acus molten salt research reactor (msrr) is the only research reactor currently under review by the nrc and it is the first and only liquid-fueled reactor ever to be reviewed by them its also one of only two advanced nuclear reactor applications currently under their review demonstrating the successful licensure of an advanced reactor with the nrc is one of the primary goals of this project after spending more than two years in pre-licensing activities the docketing of acu's msrr application marks the beginning of their formal technical review
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abilene christian university media contactwendy kilmer director of communications and media relationswendykilmer@acuedu
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for the hilyard family the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university has changed their lives for the better after the positive experience greg hilyard 22 had in the talent incubator program (tip) an internship program that pairs students with industry leaders to conduct real-life research the hilyard family created a new avenue of financial assistance for students involved in the programbeing able to attend a university close to home was one of the many aspects that drew both gretchen 90 and alan 90 hilyard to texas a&m more importantly the campus culture rooted in tradition and friendliness solidified their decision to attend the university texas a&m has a fantastic atmosphere where you can get a world-class quality education gretchen saidwhile gretchen worked toward her degree in recreation parks and tourism sciences alan pursued his degree in industrial distribution in the college of engineering he was no stranger to hard work as his mornings often began at 3 am so that he could work at the united parcel service from 3:30 to 8 am before attending his classes for the day after graduation alan used the skills and knowledge from his industrial distribution classes on a daily basis as he began his career as his industry experience grew he founded his own business swpc fluid solutions a valve and fitting distributor the hilyards found alans degree so beneficial that when their son greg applied for college he easily chose to study industrial distributionwe're very excited that we have two industrial distribution majors in the family gretchen said we think that industrial distribution is an amazing versatile degree because it is an engineering and business hybrid degree that prepares students for a variety of careers during gregs senior year he applied and was accepted into tip tip is sponsored by industry leaders who partner with students in a faculty-advised setting to conduct research and create product deliverables for company executives the program helps students gain critical skills in business development market intelligence innovation customer experience digital strategies and supply chain operations and management because of gregs great success in the program the hilyard family was inspired to create the garver black hilyard family talent incubator scholarship to allow even more students the opportunity to participate
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the hilyards are not only passionate about supporting students through tip but strongly want to give back to the university that propelled them into the world they believe that texas a&m fosters an excellent academic environment and shapes students to become life-long learners and more importantly molds students into good members of their community the students that come out of texas a&m are quality members of the community and society and we think that there's no better place on earth to go to school gretchen said the hilyards hope their gift provides students with financial relief so they can better enjoy their time here in aggielandscholarships change lives gretchen said they allow recipients to follow their dreams get the degree they are seeking and turn around and give back to the university to help other generations follow their dreams
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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 one of our development officers
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susan and keith macivor 85 are no strangers to engineers especially those who graduated from texas a&m university after witnessing the impact of a degree in petroleum engineering the macivors have established a scholarship in their name to enable the continued success of aggies who aim to make a difference in the petroleum industrywichita kansas was home for keith until he made his way to college station texas to pursue his degree his career choice was inspired by two of his uncles who were petroleum engineers in oklahoma keiths experience at texas a&m prepared him to thrive as he entered the industry
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although susan did not attend texas a&m her tie to the university has been strong from the beginning her father tommy walker frank sr studied civil engineering at texas a&m but was forced to cease his studies for financial reasons with his story close to her heart susan is motivated to prevent finances from becoming an obstacle that hinders aggies from receiving their degreesi want to help students stay in school and achieve their goals susan said as the daughter wife and mother of aggie engineering students im thrilled to pay it forward and support future generations of aggiestogether the couples dedication to increasing financial opportunity within higher education will profoundly impact the recipients of the susan and keith macivor 85 petroleum engineering scholarship to honor petroleum engineers who are residents of kansas oklahoma or texas the scholarship will be awarded to students who graduated from high schools in those states by providing students with this financial gift i hope it will help lighten the load of their educational costs keith said i benefited from scholarships when i was a student and i would like to return the favorthe macivors two children meredith macivor 19 and alan macivor 20 both graduated from texas a&m as well strengthening the familys dedication to the university and its programsthree generations of our family have loved texas a&m and we hope that continues for many more generations susan said its an outstanding university and the spirit and culture cant be beat
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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 one of our development officers
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an eight-person team from texas a&m university competed at the 2022 southeastern conference (sec) machining competition in knoxville tennessee the competition is sponsored by the department of defense and the industrial base analysis and sustainment (ibas) in conjunction with projectmfg through the secureamerica institute (sai) which is powered by the texas a&m engineering experiment station the competition allows university teams to display their machining abilities and problem-solving skills learn more about computer numerical control machining and promote state-of-the-art manufacturing education and training the aggie team included six undergraduates from the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution colton lee liam fortier alyssa bryd tobias gualandri david nemec and benjamin smith as well as two other engineering undergraduates nathan panak from the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering and madeline sellards from the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering the aggies competed against other university teams made up of undergraduates and graduate students from auburn university mississippi state university and the university of tennessee
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"for the 2022 competition the sec logo was split digitally into four quadrants and each team had to machine its section from an aluminum plate " fortier said "our objective was to manufacture the upper right quadrant of the sec logo" "the event was both a collaborative effort and a competition between all the sec schools " lee said "the major components that judges looked at were speed dimensional accuracy smoothness and surface finish we practiced perfecting similar tasks on the equipment provided to us by sai and we went into the competition prepared and confident thanks to sai's support" headquartered at texas a&m-rellis sai is a private-public research collaboration converging industry government and academia to combine advancements in us manufacturing resilience its members provide world-class leadership through applied research scaled education and workforce deployment economic analysis and policy recommendations and market-driven technology transition sai seeks to support and develop the united states manufacturing and defense industrial base from regional to national levels and strives to counter global marketplace supply chain disruptions maintain leadership in developing and deploying innovative manufacturing technologies and products and fully employ their people through comprehensive education and training in new and emerging advanced manufacturing technologies and processes on behalf of sai i congratulate the aggie group of students for an outstanding accomplishment said dr dean schneider acting director of sai we are proud to have been a part of their success and we wish the team all the best as it moves forward to the next competition "the aggies had a strong start but quickly realized their machining fixture had been improperly installed after fixing the issue they finished with the competitions best time of 74 minutes and 57 seconds " said dr darrell wallace the aggie team advisor and professor of practice in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution "though the tennessee team's time was longer their careful use of fewer tools and their proficiency in achieving excellent surface finish gave them enough of an advantage to claim the inaugural title"
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these events show the significance and excitement of modern manufacturing and allow professionals from industry and scholars from various universities to mentor and engage with their peers in similar programs the competition sparks new friendships and opportunities and introduces students to the career possibilities in manufacturing "one of the speakers who impacted me was adele ratcliff the director of the ibas " said byrd "during the competition ratcliff talked to sellards and me about how happy she was to see us competing in this space as women it made me feel like she saw herself in us women fostering the next generation of women in the industry and that inspired me" "we do some incredible things as engineers however it can sometimes be challenging to connect with other engineers so to come together and do amazing things as a community is great " lee said "i am thankful for all the support from dr wallace and justin carter who helped with the logistics of our trip also i am grateful to dr tony schmitz from the university of tennessee knoxville the originator of this competition for helping make this event happen" "the competition allowed us to bring people from the industry national research and academia together into one place and learn from each other " said panak "it was an awesome experience and the team is eager to go back next year and win it"
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dr chelsea hu an assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university and a member of the accountability climate equity and scholarship (aces) faculty fellows program is using synthetic biology to help scientists control genetically engineered cells her study is the first to use modeling and a physical experiment to show the effectiveness of layered feedback mechanisms hu collaborated with dr richard murray at the california institute of technology synthetic biology is incredibly useful hu said it allows scientists to engineer a cell by turning a specific gene on or off to make the cell behave in a certain way the problem is that once scientists have created the engineered cell they have very little control over how it reacts to external factors my research is about using synthetic biology to implement the needed control mechanisms hus research was published in the journal nature communications control is the most vital aspect of engineering hu said we can develop anything but if we cant control it its not useful to us the goal of my research is to help scientists have more control over engineered cells by applying feedback mechanisms engineers regularly use feedback mechanisms to control systems in a way that impacts daily life without feedback mechanisms things like modern aircraft or motor vehicles could not exist the best way to think about a feedback mechanism is to think about your air conditioner hu said if you program your air conditioner to 72 degrees when the temperature rises to 73 the unit will cool the room until it returns to 72 degrees when the thermostat reaches the set temperature the unit will shut off however because not all feedback mechanisms are created equal adding them will not always improve performance the mechanisms must be properly combined because there is often a tradeoff between speed and robustness a quick response is usually frail and a robust response usually takes more time engineers often layer two feedback mechanisms to overcome the tradeoff when designing a fast and robust system this optimization strategy is largely responsible for the robust performance of most modern technology similar layering strategies are also naturally occurring in biology when a living organism experiences a disturbance such as an environmental physical or chemical change it uses layered feedback mechanisms to return to homeostasis we are trying to determine if its a coincidence that evolution and engineering use the same layered feedback design hu said we are also researching if layered feedback mechanisms in biology overcome the speed and robustness tradeoff in the same way they do in engineered systems most importantly we are determining if using layered feedback mechanisms is the right path to gain control of synthetic biological systems while layered feedback mechanisms are widely used in modern technology hus work is the first of its kind to design model analyze and engineer this layered architecture in living cells after creating the living cells with the layered feedback mechanisms hu administered disturbances to measure the cells response her research confirms both computationally and experimentally that layered feedback mechanisms improve cell performance over time hus research is the first step in figuring out how scientists can have greater control over engineered cells in the future this research could have a profound impact on humanity when it is integrated into the biomedical agricultural industrial and environmental fields once we can control engineered cells we can use them to improve human life hu said the cells could be used to help with things like treating bowel inflammation improving plant growth or cleaning up chemical waste but control in synthetic biology is still in its infancy and we have a lot of work to do before this technology is widely integrated into our everyday lives this research was partially funded by the defense advanced research projects agency
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representatives from the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university celebrated success at the most recent human factors and ergonomics society (hfes) annual meeting attended by more than 1 100 people dr xudong zhang professor and chair of the human factors prize committee said this was the first fully in-person annual meeting since the pandemic started faculty and graduate students took part in 30 lectures eight poster presentations and one panel dr farzan sasangohar associate professor served as technical program chair for the conference the department is proud of our faculty and will continue to support their presence at this flagship conference said dr lewis ntaimo department head this year the department sponsored an information booth at the conference doctoral student srihari menon attended the meeting to present his research under faculty advisor dr nancy currie-gregg on the injury outcomes of posture in astronauts hfes was overall a good experience for me i got to present my work to a diverse audience menon said while there i discovered a professional opportunity i reconnected with two professors and networked with a lot of professionals new to the field we increased the visibility of the department at the conference said dr ranjana mehta associate professor and member of the hfes executive council everyone i talked to was in awe of our group and their collective breadth of research and excellence in our science awards received during the conference were presented to: john hayes and mehta best student-authored paper training technical group karim zahed outstanding student member with honors farzaneh shahini outstanding student member with honors oshin tyagi outstanding student member with honors tyagi and mehta human factors prize aakash yadav yinsu zhang and mehta hart best video dr maryam zahabi assistant professor said for human factors researchers this conference is their flagship it provides an excellent opportunity for the students to showcase their research and increase the departments visibility zahabi said it was great to see all of the texas a&m folks at the premier conference in our field said dr thomas ferris associate professor im thrilled to see how we have grown in recent years into a very strong presence
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many biomedical engineering students at texas a&m university work on research that could impact peoples lives so its not uncommon to see students or graduates in this major come up with innovative and marketable ideas two of these aggies took their inventions to a competition tailor-made to help them succeed with their entrepreneurial goals in 2022 senior haley clark and former student madi heck 21 promoted their ideas at aggie pitch a texas a&m university-wide competition encouraging the engagement and promotion of businesses and product innovations with potential investors mentors and partners the contest has three divisions: full pitches for current students full pitches for former students and elevator pitches for both clark competed in the current student full pitch and won third place heck competed with her business partner mark golla 22 in the former student full pitch also winning third place both women had positive things to say about the advantages of creating competing and inventing with a biomedical engineering background courses promote versatility clarks entrepreneurial journey began with a membership in engineering inc in the college of engineering at texas a&m she conducted a customer discovery interview there and found out tampon leakage wasnt just her problem when she engineered a better way of controlling and managing menstruation blood flow a professor encouraged her to apply for aggie pitch during the competition clark had the opportunity to discuss her designs basic principles and feasibility with an engineer working on feminine hygiene products at the procter and gamble company they were pretty excited clark said clark is using the $3 500 she won to prototype her product depending on how much she spends she may be able to use the rest to fund a patent application she credits her major's versatility with her product's potential success there are a lot of different sides to biomedical engineering clark said we take electrical mechanical and broad-spectrum engineering classes combined with medical sciences we also take anatomy and physiology which helped me understand the uterus and the general principles of blood flow clark was recently accepted into texas a&ms school of engineering medicine a collaboration between the college of engineering the college of medicine and the houston methodist hospital the program offers clark the perfect environment for encouraging medical invention while learning physician skills advanced degrees focus application heck graduated in december 2021 with masters degrees in biomedical engineering and business administration she is currently the ceo of sagespectra a company founded on the device she and golla introduced at aggie pitch their creation is a low-cost device that quickly measures tissue oxygen saturation a key indicator of tissue health we wanted to target the early detection of peripheral artery disease or pad said heck pad occurs when narrowed vessels traveling from the heart to the legs result in reduced blood supply to the extremities approximately 20 million people in the us have pad yet it remains highly underdiagnosed when left untreated pad can progress to critical limb ischemia where the blood supply is severely reduced or even blocked causing ulcers and in extreme cases tissue death requiring amputation our primary goal is to increase access to pad screening for at-risk individuals and communities said heck a more comprehensive cohort of patients can be screened right in their homes or primary care offices with a low-cost portable device through market research and networking heck and golla discovered their device could also serve other health needs such as grading pressure ulcers monitoring peripheral fluid flow and even assessing tissue and organ fluid flow for robotic surgery entrepreneurial programs available aggie pitch has become a critical networking event in the last five years a competition where aggie entrepreneurial ecosystem members connect with and show support for each other all majors and industries with all stages of startups can apply the thousands of dollars awarded as prizes have funded further research prototypes business startups and patent applications plus students and teams who compete at aggie pitch as finalists become part of an exclusive group of startup business founders able to represent texas a&m at national and global entrepreneurial competitions aggie pitch is one of four competitions in the mcferrin center for entrepreneurship and one of several programs open to students and former students hoping to change the world one idea at a time
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while departments at universities and colleges continuously strive to improve their curriculum complete redesigns are rare however a foundational education based on accurate and up-to-date knowledge is paramount especially for student engineers who will go on to work in a rapidly advancing field members of the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university recently reviewed and redesigned its engineering curriculum to address its growing undergraduate program and ongoing industry needs dr charles patrick a professor of practice in biomedical engineering served as the lead faculty member in the curriculum review numerous universities and programs are faced with grappling with how to incorporate education technologies changes in student mindsets advances in education pedagogy and employers needs in redesigning curricula as a function of continuous improvement said patrick however a robust framework for curriculum review does not exist the national academy of engineering recently stated that ‘engineering education must continuously adapt both to advances in science and technology fields and to the changing needs of industry society and workers themselves adaptation of engineering education requires robust curriculum review he said the department used a new faculty-driven data-informed framework known as the curriculum continuity checkup process to conduct its review the research detailing the continuity checkup process framework is published in the biomedical engineering education journal the review team used the continuity checkup process framework to evaluate the current undergraduate curriculum develop outcomes that define the contemporary ideal graduate and create a curriculum map resulting in specific courses by addressing gaps redundancies and sequencing issues in the curriculum the team can better strategically position the program for ongoing growth and excellence now that the review process is complete the department can apply it to the undergraduate program it is not however limited only to texas a&m from the beginning patrick envisioned both local and national outcomes he hoped to provide a process and framework that the biomedical engineering education community could adopt and use to review their curricula the continuity checkup process can be generalized and extended to other biomedical engineering programs as they look towards assessing and redesigning curricula motivated by continuous improvement and responding to transformation in engineering education future industry needs rapid scientific and technological innovation and societal changes he said the process can be used for any of the three curriculum strategies of changeadd-on integration or re-building contributors to the paper include several biomedical engineering faculty: dr reza avazmohammadi assistant professor; dr daniel alge associate professor; dr charles w peak instructional assistant professor; and dr mike mcshane professor and department head biomedical engineerings curriculum review and redesign is complete and approved by the faculty and the external advisory board the redesigned curriculum will be implemented in the fall 2023 catalog
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researchers at texas a&m university have uncovered a solution to a decades-old mystery surrounding the failure of certain ultra-thin coatings during the phase-change heat transfer process led by dr dion antao a team from the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering has not only helped illuminate the previously elusive challenges facing silane self-assembled monolayers (sams) during the phase-change heat transfer but also developed enhanced versions of the coatings offering exponentially improved performance the research has the potential to provide significant improvements to the efficiency of electric power generation resulting in lower carbon emissions for fossil fuel-based technology and lower energy production costs for renewable energy production methods improved silane sams can affect the performance of heat exchanger components of refrigeration or air conditioning technology and devices said antao assistant professor and j mike walker '66 faculty fellow ii benefits could also extend to two-phase thermal management devices used to cool electronics or electrical devices in electric-based power generation or conversion technologies the concept of enhanced dropwise condensation came about in the 1930s and continued to be refined and further explored through the 1950s when researchers focused on ultra-thin silane sam coatings the silane sams however are known to degrade within minutes of operation during water vapor condensation a failure that researchers have struggled to determine and improve upon for decades to our knowledge our work was the first in the field of thin coatings-assisted heat transfer enhancement to experimentally validate the coating failure mechanism and propose a corresponding method to mitigate coating degradation " said dr ruisong wang a former texas a&m mechanical engineering doctoral student and a member of the research team wang said the team first identified the bonding mechanism between the coating material and its underlying material or substrate after finding an explanation for why these silane sams fail during water vaper condensation heat transfer the researchers then applied that knowledge to extend the lifetime of the coatings on silicon to at least 500 hours using oxygen plasma to enrich the surface with that success antao and his team took those coating concepts and applied them to copper substrates "copper as a substrate is much more widely used as a heat exchanger material than silicon but it is also more challenging to create robust silane sam coatings on copper or other metal substrates " antao said "our silane sam coatings on copper that use our proposed coating integration and synthesis procedures were able to survive without failure for more than 350 hours compared to coatings integrated on copper or other metals using the more common procedure which fails within 30 minutes"
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the results of their testing showed the coatings on copper to have vastly improved condensation heat transfer characteristics according to the team's heat transfer measurements throughout the research process the research was published in the american chemical society's applied materials & interfaces journal and the international journal of heat and mass transfer documenting their work to first determine why the coatings failed and how they successfully developed more robust silane sam coatings "our coating methods and procedures developed based on our validated silane sam coating 'condensation-mediated degradation' hypotheses are the key difference " antao said "additionally our condensation testing system is extremely well controlled we have no impurities like non-condensable gases such as air in the test system during water vapor condensation this allows us to be confident in our proposed mechanism and validated hypothesis" as the research continues antao said his team will explore different types of coatings and their impacts on the environment and human health they are specifically seeking alternatives to fluorinated compounds which have been connected to harmful health effects "we have been exploring alternate nonfluorinated low surface energy coatings as robust dropwise promoters and this is an active area of our current and future research " antao said "the potential for impact of robust low surface energy coatings on enhanced condensation heat transfer with applications ranging from power generation to water purification/recovery is huge we wish to leverage our knowledge of making and testing robust nonfluorinated and fluorinated low surface energy coatings to achieve such an impact on liquid-vapor phase-change technologies" antao was honored at the 2022 micro flow and interfacial phenomena conference with the outstanding early career award the honor recognized this research as well as other ongoing work of antao and his team
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three prestigious organizations recognized dr jn reddy for his outstanding and continued contributions to the field of engineering and science reddy's recent recognitions include his elections as a fellow of the spanish royal academy of engineering as an honorary member of the european academy of sciences and member of the european academy of sciences and arts reddy serves as the o'donnell foundation chair iv professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university and the director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station's center of innovation in mechanics for design and manufacturing his distinctions include serving as a university distinguished professor and regents professor at texas a&m and a us national academy of engineering member in total reddy has been elected to eight different national academies including his recent recognitions reddy attributes his extensive contributions to engineering literature and his international research collaborations as the primary reasons behind his election to the international organizations "my research my books frequent travels to collaborate and conduct research with european colleagues and major professional society awards that i have received have contributed to this election " reddy said "getting elected to eight national academies from engineering is itself a major recognition to me individually i am humbled by these recognitions by different bodies and the personal recognitions also put texas a&m globally in a list of institutions whose faculty members are members of these academies"
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after a twice-delayed trip to rwanda to build latrines eli norris a senior in the department of materials science and engineering had an eye-opening experience that reinforced his career goals norris along with five other students and a professional mentor traveled to rwanda in may for engineers without borders (ewb-tamu) and spent 11 days embedded in the culture of matyazo working on these projects was eye-opening and culturally significant norris said its been a unique experience to see into the lives of people completely across the world it helped reinforce that whatever i end up doing i want it to matter i want it to make a difference in january 2020 norris joined ewb-tamu to contribute to something meaningful and continued to move up the ladder in the organization and eventually became the vice president of projects i joined because we got to do something that matters while were here in college norris said i wanted to move up into more of a leadership role instead of just being the guy who does my few tasks after doing that for a semester i became a sub-team leader and led a small group of students i enjoyed doing that and it led me to be a project lead as vice president of projects norris took over the latrine project right after an assessment trip conducted in 2020 he drew out the latrine and created a 3d model that he completed in 2021 the project was a collaborative effort between ewb-tamu and the rwandan community for four years to improve sanitary and agricultural conditions it was an educational experience because i was managing this project which was international so were talking to people in rwanda that dont speak english norris said figuring out how to communicate with someone whose first language is not english was something we had to do i learned how to manage people delegate tasks and keep everyone motivated i discovered a lot about project management and the softer skills to be a successful engineer the original plan was to go over the summer of 2021 however the trip had to be postponed because of covid-19 the trip was delayed for a second time after the omicron variant ramped-up with the outline of the latrine already in place norris and his team did a remote implication with the community of matyazo they built the first latrine with instructions from ewb-tamu in college station texas we created detailed instruction manuals he said it was almost like a lego set on how to build the latrine we sent that and the funding to them they built the first one with our remote support in april after that we finally made the trip happen in may they already knew how to build the latrines so when we were there we worked with them giving pointers and tips when norris arrived with the team they built the latrine on the hillside due to the lack of flat land and built a square box with stones carried from the river up the mountain local stonemasons were employed to break the stones into rectangles and a mixture of cement sand and water was used in between the stones a concrete slab formed the pit where the waste goes and the superstructure was made of mud bricks the cool thing about these latrines is that everything theyre made out of is crafted locally so were not having to import from the us he said we can help them with the sanitation problem and stimulate their economy by purchasing materials from local people and using local labor to build them
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the first latrine was built by the community before the ewb-tamu teams arrival and the second was built while they were there the third fourth and fifth are now completed and the sixth seventh and eighth are about to be constructed we want to build more than 100 and we cant be there for most of them so we tried to figure out a way that allows them to build with our remote support norris said this idea is cool because its new to engineering and construction normally you want to be onsite watching it with the hurdles the team and norris have overcome dr rené elms associate professor of practice and primary advisor for ewb-tamu has been extremely impressed with the project's progress even with the challenges and postponements due to covid they were very resourceful in developing an effective strategy to keep moving forward elms said their tenacity and sincere desire to serve the community members provide a powerful example of what it truly means to be an aggie engineer funding for the project came from ewb-tamu which raised 95% from fundraising and local engineering companies and private businesses each latrine takes about $500 to build and will last up to 20 years we learned a lot; there were many things they taught us that we would have never thought of norris said one was the process of pouring the concrete slab we originally planned to pour the slabs and lift them on top of the pit but they decided to create supports in the pit and pour the concrete directly on top although that was not in the previous design norris said it was more efficient because builders dont have to lift the slabs and worry about anyone getting hurt when we were building the latrine people from the community started bringing supplies norris said seeing the sense of community they have and how much they care about each other and how hardworking they are made me realize we take advantage of a lot of things and we should be happy even when stuff doesnt go our way
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the texas a&m university college of engineering hosted decembers aggies invent with the theme of tackling different problems the health care industry faces the issues were provided by their sponsors sling health at the event 11 teams had 48 hours to solve one of 12 need statements identified as issues in the medical field due to a tie this aggies invent had one first-place winner and two second-place winners both second-place winners received the same amount of money awarded first-place team permaclear tackled the need statement to create a device that holds visual acuity during procedures with a thin camera known as a cystoscope that is used internally they discovered a common problem that doctors face during a cystoscopy procedure is debris on the lens of the cystoscope making it difficult to see inside a patient's bladder their solution was a device that filters out debris from the saline solution inserted into the bladder through an irrigation system much like the practice of dentists their idea is to replenish the individuals bladder during the procedure by filtering out the used saline solution that has debris and pumping in new filtered saline to make it easier to see so the procedure can be faster and simpler permaclear also decided to add led light strips and fiber-optic led cables to eliminate and distinguish between noncancerous and cancerous tissue that is found commonly during these procedures and optimally is used to help diagnose bladder cancer it has been an exhilarating experience said arthur farnsworth ‘23 undergraduate student in the department of biomedical engineering and member of permaclear when we formed and met each of our teammates i instantly knew there was a connection and we were on the same page on how to approach our problem i was really fortunate to work with such esteemed colleagues being able to translate and innovate medical solutions and apply them to actual practice and impact the real world is my biggest takeaway from this experience
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second-place team cowboy dental was tasked with improving rural health care access the team narrowed this broad task down by focusing specifically on dental care the problem they found was that it is difficult to get to a dentist in rural areas so their solution had to include something the patient could do at home cowboy dental came up with a way to measure someones current dental hygiene techniques to potentially find ways to improve it at home such as brushing your teeth more often flossing more or brushing for a longer period of time our prototype solves the inability to measure how ineffective your preventative care is at home said wyatt smith a senior in the department of computer science and engineering the mouthguard we designed measures the actual plaque levels in your mouth and will tell you if youre doing an inadequate job and offer suggestions like needing to use more toothpaste or it can tell you that you are doing a great job and to keep doing what you're doing it would be a part of your new dental routine and take maybe 30 more seconds than what you would usually take
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patho-gone the team that tied for second place developed a novel method for sanitizing white coats they identified the problem that approximately two million patients get in-hospital infections and their solution was to create a device that is effective and time efficient to integrate with the fast pace of a doctors life the device is a cabinet with multiple slots like a locker with uvc lights that kill all bacteria in five minutes all a doctor would need to do is place their white coat in the slot shut the door and in five minutes their coat would be sanitized on the outside i have to say this experience has been fantastic and the first time we met on friday we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into said marcus glass ‘24 undergraduate student in the department of biomedical engineering and member of patho-gone this weekend has been a transformation going into the process of design development brainstorming and the team as a whole meshed so well together the teamwork is what got us to second place my biggest takeaway is seeing the engineering design process in action i think oftentimes we hear about how to go about executing things and seeing how efficient it is to go from step a to step b was beautiful students who participate in aggies invent are always encouraged to take their ideas and innovations to the next step with the engineering entrepreneurship program's start-up incubator engineering inc
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rudy dismuke was a first-generation aggie and attended texas a&m university to study chemical engineering as a proud member of the class of 1978 throughout his time at texas a&m he was inspired by his parents and several professors who helped him on his journey to a successful career in chemical engineering the impact of these mentors led him to establish nine scholarships in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineeringi want to help inspire future chemical engineers especially first-generation low-income or ethnically diverse students dismuke said my father was in the army and never made a lot of money however my mom and dad fully understood the importance of an education and made the financial commitment to get all three sons a college educationit was the generosity of his parents and professors that inspired him and his wife susanne dismuke to establish the chieko and wt dismuke scholarship in the chemical engineering department to assist students from lower-income families in receiving an education since the passing of his mother chieko dismuke rudy has established five scholarships in her name including this one that also honors his father wt dismukei recall as a four or five-year-old my mom spent a lot of time teaching me math said dismuke this skill enabled me to become an engineerwhile his foundation of becoming an engineer was set up by his parents at an early age dismuke also credits many of his professors with helping him become the first college graduate in his family some of those professors were dr charles holland dr rayford anthony dr ron darby and dr kenneth hall rudy and susanne have also established four scholarships honoring these professors over the years i have recognized several key professors with endowed scholarships because they helped me attain the knowledge that allowed me to succeed in the oil business said dismuke his father is a 93-year-old world war ii korean war and vietnam war veteran and was honored to have a scholarship in his name i showed him the scholarship agreement and he was very proud to have his name and my mother's name on an endowed scholarship because the scholarship is endowed i told him that this scholarship will financially help students forever dismuke said he was pleased and i cannot wait to send him the thank you notes from studentsdismukes impactful experience has led him to continue giving back to the aggie engineering family and inspiring the future of chemical engineers
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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 one of our development officers
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a new approach by texas a&m university researchers to predicatively controlling supercritical liquid fuel injection mixing could significantly impact the performance and efficiency of engines powering vehicles from automobiles to hypersonic jets dr dorrin jarrahbashi and her students seek to shed light on the challenges in understanding the science of droplet breakup at supercritical conditions pushing the fuel beyond the point where traditional liquid or gas phases apply the research which will use molecular dynamics and direct numerical simulations alongside high-speed experimental measurements could help lead the way to a new generation of high-speed liquid-fueled propulsion systems that are faster and more efficient than the current standard potential applications for the knowledge sought by this research include a broad range of high-pressure propulsion systems including diesel gasoline biodiesel dual-fuel engines liquid rockets scramjets rotating detonation engines and gas turbines "this research will promote the next generation of high-speed liquid-fueled propulsion systems for supersonic and hypersonic air and space transportation and supercritical power generation cycles " said jarrahbashi assistant professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering "these benefits will promote us clean energy initiatives and strengthen national security defense and economic competitiveness" the national science foundation selected jarrahbashi as a 2023 faculty early career development (career) award recipient the award will further support her research into advancing liquid fuel combustion technology the career award honors promising junior faculty as they pursue cutting-edge research while simultaneously promoting excellence in education "i am very honored and pleased to receive this prestigious award which provides the needed resources to build a firm foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research in fluid dynamics with significant impacts on a wide range of applications to benefit society " jarrahbashi said "this career project is significant as it generates new knowledge over multiple scales on breakup and phase change of supercritical droplets difficult or impossible to gain experimentally or computationally the new knowledge is critical for enhancing mixing to enable higher combustion efficiency and lower emission"
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when liquid fuel injects into the compressed air of internal combustion engines it breaks into several micron-size droplets creating a fuel spray before evaporating into an ignitable fuel-air mixture this process is called atomization the details of this process determine the quality of the mixture and in turn the combustion efficiency and pollutant formation to improve the performance efficiency and environmental impact of these systems modern engine design is moving toward higher-pressure systems that push fuel into supercritical conditions dramatically changing the fuel's thermophysical properties jarrahbashi's research will explore the mechanisms that apply to liquid fuels in droplet breakup at supercritical conditions from molecular interactions to higher scales to advance supercritical combustion to improve control of the mixing that occurs before combustion the research outcomes could fundamentally advance the field of multiphase flow the research team's approach combines molecular dynamics with direct numerical simulations in exploring supercritical fluids an area rich with potential but challenging to navigate jarrahbashi hopes her approach will provide her team and peers with a powerful new tool capable of making a significant impact in the fluid dynamics and combustion community "what excites me about this project is that it introduces the first coupled molecular dynamics-direct numerical simulations approach for modeling supercritical breakup to enable implementation of the molecular interfacial behavior in modeling high-speed multiphase flows " jarrahbashi said one of this project's challenges is finding a way to measure droplet atomization in high-pressure and high-speed conditions these situations can involve shockwave interaction with the fuel spray entrapping the droplets in a cloud of vapor and requiring a knowledge of the phase change process and surface tension changes rooted in the molecular-level interaction at the droplet interface "computational modeling of supercritical breakup requires knowledge of the phase change process and surface tension changes rooted in the molecular-level interaction at the droplet interface " jarrahbashi said "due to lack of experimental data and limitations of theories on interfacial behavior surface tension effects are overlooked in modeling supercritical flows molecular dynamics simulations emerge as a unique tool to determine the link between phase change and surface tension behavior in supercritical flows" to combat this obstacle the team will combine the methods of coupled molecular-continuum simulations and experiments using a novel computational approach focusing on the molecular level to the micro-scale however molecular dynamics simulations are limited by the computational costs fortunately there are resources available at texas a&m to help in easing the limitations jarrahbashi and her team will be using the highly efficient parallel computational simulation resources of the texas a&m high-performance computing center to overcome these computational challenges posed by coupled molecular dynamics and direct numerical simulations the project will also include a collaboration with sandia national laboratory to conduct high-speed microscopic imaging of supercritical sprays and provide students an opportunity to work alongside its combustion research facility as the team works to set up and validate its models the educational component of jarrahbashi's career award includes work aimed at cultivating an inclusive learning environment in fluid dynamics and diversifying future leaders in stem by fostering sustained mentorship for underrepresented minorities and women components of the plan include training high school teachers and informing students and parents at school's science technology engineering and math events to enhance public literacy on fluid mixing to promote clean combustion "the vision motivating my education approach is that creating an inclusive and integrated education-research framework will cultivate a sense of relatedness and competence in students to pursue higher education and career in stem and in turn decrease the attrition rate " jarrahbashi said "executing this vision requires intervention in the early stages of education by preparing parents teachers and students"
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aggies travel near and far to receive their education at texas a&m university vikram torpunuri 90 came from a small village in india to the united states where he received a masters degree in civil engineering from texas a&m his passion for promoting the value of higher education has led him and his family to establish a fellowship for out-of-state civil engineering studentstorpunuri learned about texas a&m from friends he met when he moved to the united states in search of higher-education opportunities when he transferred to texas a&m he was impressed by what he encountered on campusi was pleasantly surprised by the campus academic focus and rich traditions at texas a&m he said the friendly environment on campus diversity among the student population and the academically focused small-town atmosphere was the perfect combinationafter he received his civil engineering degree torpunuri shifted his academic focus and earned a second masters degree in finance from the mays business school at texas a&m his professional career encompasses a range of leadership and founding positions with companies focused on providing business intelligence solutions currently he is the founder and ceo of hoap health a person-centric health care analytics company that leverages advanced artificial intelligence technologies to improve patient outcomesoutside work torpunuri volunteers as an advisor and mentor in the paul merage school of business university of california irvine he values the education he received which enabled him to find the success he has today he is also an avid hiker and loves outdoor activities
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torpunuri and his family established the torpunuri family civil engineering endowed fellowship to support out-of-state students pursuing their masters or doctoral degrees and focusing on addressing climate change they hope to enable students to pursue higher education by removing a financial barrier preventing them from doing so i had a great experience at texas a&m with world-class professors torpunuri said i hope our small gift will help a student in need finish their educationthe torpunuri familys generous gift will continue to provide academic opportunities for aggie graduate students in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering for generations to come
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fellowships encourage collaboration between the faculty students and industry mentors while allowing graduate students to further their education and thus having a greater impact on the industry 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 one of our development officers
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the texas a&m university electric boat racing team is a student-led engineering design organization that designs creates and tests electric boats it starts each year by creating a vessel from scratch selecting components such as the motor and batteries the team also drafts and builds the boat hulls in-house james frizzell ‘22 who graduated with bachelors degree in ocean engineering and david moulton 22 founded the electric boat racing team during their senior year the two students were members of the human powered submarine team another ocean engineering student organization however frizzell and moulton wanted to create something new and the texas a&m electric boat racing team was born this summer the five-member team participated in the national 2022 promoting electric propulsion (pep) competition for the first time and took first place with their 6-foot boat 12th volt in the unmanned category
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the pep for small craft is an annual program hosted by the american society of naval engineers (asne) that empowers students with the knowledge to design and safely construct an electric-powered boat through online learning industry mentorship and grants college teams can then race their completed boats during a summer competition in virginia solar wind and human-powered entries are not allowed instead teams can only use batteries to power their boats which are tested on speed and endurance the texas a&m electric boat racing team rose to the challenge and set to work designing its boat from the ground up in early september they began preliminary stages the team spent some time which would prove to be well-invested deciding upon a hull type a hull is the body or framework of a vessel that sits in the water in electric boats it also holds the various electrical components after researching designs and consulting with their pep advisor they settled on a catamaran-style hull which is a multi-hulled vessel with two parallel hulls choosing a style with two points of contact in the water would ensure a naturally stable boat that wouldnt capsize in heavy waves additionally both sides could be equipped with an individual motor and batteries effectively doubling the boats overall power we used 3d printers to make a mold which we laid sheets of fiberglass in said frizzell for many members this was their first time working with fiberglass and epoxy resin forming the first hull was a learning curve for everyone but we mastered the technique for the second hull we then used carbon fiber tubing to act as the bridge and connected the hulls moulton led more of the initial design phase since he had more knowledge of electrical systems than i did frizzell said i provided what technical knowledge i could and worked as a logistical advisor to ensure that the project moved smoothly and was completed on time by the beginning of the spring semester they had constructed the main body and had the boat in the water moreover they had achieved motion in the water still months out from the competition the team celebrated its progress by plunging into the next step: strengthening the boats hardware they spent eight weeks refining the boats electrical processes followed by three weeks of painstakingly correcting mechanical issues their precautions and patience paid off on race day the team arrived at pohick bay regional park in virginia feeling calm collected and confident in 12th volts ability to successfully complete the 5-mile course the texas a&m electric boat racing team went on to take first place in the unmanned category and also set a course record of completing the 5-mile course in 17 minutes and 42 seconds the best part of the day for me was when our boat crossed the finish line frizzell said that was the moment of relief when all the hard work and hours spent on this project finally paid off frizzell and moultons goal for the electric boat racing team is simple for it to continue a winning legacy
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hayder alhilo moved from iraq to the united states with his family in 2017 in 2020 he enrolled at texas a&m university as a first-generation student and has been involved in undergraduate research and multiple internships he also served as vice president of the texas a&m chapter of the institute of industrial and systems engineers and recruitment chair for the professional brotherhood of engineers after graduating in december alhilo will start a job at dow inc as a supply chain engineer in january q: what drew you to industrial and systems engineering a: it is a broad department and being an industrial and systems engineer will allow me to get into many different industries job positions and experiences it also has a business side in addition to engineering i can get into the people aspect of engineering such as consulting supply chain and management i wanted to study something that would allow me to work in project management and work directly with people while using my engineering skills q: you are a first-generation student what surprised you once you were on campus what was expected a: what surprised me was that of course i made a lot of mistakes i went to the wrong major at first i took the wrong classes; i didn't have enough guidance i did not have the experience of a person who went to college and told me what i needed to do and what i didnt want to do i had to make my own mistakes and learn from them that was surprising what was not surprising was that i knew i had to ask questions network and try to experience new things that i wasn't told to try i knew i had to learn on my own because if i asked my parents they didnt know they never went to college they only graduated from high school and they also graduated in another country as an immigrant first-generation student it was tough for me to learn the culture get used to the language and from there learn how the school system/job hunting works q: what tips do you have for first-generation students a: network talk to people ask questions as early as possible and learn from others mistakes that's something i started doing midway through my school career getting into organizations getting involved as much as possible and hearing other people's experiences once this happened i started getting into leadership getting help from others and helping others make your own mistakes but network talk to people and get involved so you can learn from and hear other experiences q: how has being part of student organizations influenced your time here at texas a&m a: getting involved allowed me to make long-lasting friendships and get to know many people involved in companies internships and other student organizations being a leader in organizations also improved my skills and taught me new skill sets you develop better ways to communicate with people and gain emotional intelligence when you build these relationships i was motivated to get out of my comfort zone and look outside the box after developing those professional and interpersonal skills i started helping other people i now really enjoy it when i see them getting jobs speaking with recruiters and doing well in their classes i only had that help once i asked and worked with others also getting involved allowed me to build an extensive network which helps with giving or receiving help bringing people together and giving back
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q: did you participate in any internships a: i worked at bmw (co-op) and then at tesla (internship) for two different summers my experience was very positive and i learned a lot i applied what we learned here in classes quality engineering coding systems engineering process improvement and mainly interpersonal skills learning about project management helped me communicate with higher management and better prepared me to lead other teams i was managing a lot of projects and making decisions for big-name companies in addition to being responsible for managing people and running complicated systems i'm still not as knowledgeable as some experienced people in industry but with the aggie network the knowledge we gain here and the experiences we get to have i got the opportunity to shine q: are you still thinking about the automobile industry as something that you'd like to work in after graduation or did you learn that youd rather work elsewhere a: that's the point of an internship to learn what you want and what you don't want i did enjoy the manufacturing environment for a short time but i don't see myself being there long term that's why i switched my career perspective to supply chain within the chemical and oil and gas fields i prefer a style of management with decision-making and new challenges every day q: from your experience especially as a leader what part of the aggie network do you think current students should better utilize a: a lot of people don't really understand the second piece of the word aggie network they are aggies but they don't network if you look at alumni aggies you will see that most of them are leaders and managers working in many industries they would love to talk to you hire you or share their experiences with you remember we all hold the same values as aggies we were all accepted to this university for a reason some students don't like to get into leadership they don't like to network and they don't ask questions which causes them to lose lots of opportunities i also notice that some students dont get to know people outside their circle network with other majors ask about each others backgrounds and understand others experiences we're all unique individuals if students network they will realize yes i have a huge opportunity to grow and learn we have a tremendous amount of support after school because of the aggie spirit and the aggie network q: what general advice do you have for students a: your net worth is your network build your network and connections as early as possible and be a leader you will be able to help people when you join the industry always think about how you can give back and help others use the resources that are available on campus try to get a mentor and ask if any professors or faculty members have time to mentor you these people have knowledge and experience i met with lots of professors who gave me pieces of advice on things that id never even thought about as a first-generation student i needed those mentors finally challenge yourself get involved get into organizations compete climb into leadership positions make friends and most importantly have fun
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for ajey chandra it was the lively environment of campus and the outstanding education provided by the engineering program that led him to texas a&m university he had always wanted to pursue a degree in chemical engineering which made his decision easy chandra graduated from the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and is a proud member of the class of 1986 he and his wife ann piccolo chandra 87 have generously established the chandra family scholarship in chemical engineering following graduation chandras passion for chemical engineering continued and he has worked for several companies in the oil and gas industry over the past 35 years this ultimately led to a successful career and his current position as the executive vice president at baker & obrien inc in houstonthe degree i received at texas a&m has been instrumental in my career in oil and gas chandra said more importantly ive had the chance to work with and learn from a lot of great aggies throughout my careerajey chandra is not the only aggie in his family his wife ann piccolo chandra graduated with the class of 1987 and her father joe piccolo was a member of the class of 1950 their love and devotion for the university were easily passed along to their children who also attended the university their son raj chandra graduated in may 2022 with a mechanical engineering degree their daughter mary chandra graduated in august 2021 with a degree in biomedical sciences and is pursuing a doctoral degree from the school of veterinary medicine and biomedical sciences at texas a&m
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