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plant leaves have a natural superpower theyre designed with water repelling characteristics called a superhydrophobic surface this trait allows leaves to cleanse themselves from dust particles inspired by such natural designs a team of researchers at texas a&m university has developed an innovative way to control the hydrophobicity of a surface to benefit to the biomedical field researchers in dr akhilesh k gaharwars lab in the department of biomedical engineering have developed a lotus effect by incorporating atomic defects in nanomaterials which could have widespread applications in the biomedical field including biosensing lab-on-a-chip blood-repellent anti-fouling and self-cleaning applications superhydrophobic materials are used extensively for self-cleaning characteristic of devices however current materials require alteration to the chemistry or topography of the surface to work this limits the use of superhydrophobic materials designing hydrophobic surfaces and controlling the wetting behavior has long been of great interest as it plays a crucial role in accomplishing self-cleaning ability gaharwar said however there are limited biocompatible approaches to control the wetting behavior of the surface as desired in several biomedical and biotechnological applications
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the texas a&m design adopts a ‘nanoflower-like assembly of two-dimensional (2d) atomic layers to protect the surface from wetting the team recently released a study published in chemical communications 2d nanomaterials are an ultrathin class of nanomaterials and have received considerable attention in research gaharwars lab used 2d molybdenum disulfide (mos2) a new class of 2d nanomaterials that has shown enormous potential in nanoelectronics optical sensors renewable energy sources catalysis and lubrication but has not been investigated for biomedical applications this innovative approach demonstrates applications of this unique class of materials to the biomedical industry
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these 2d nanomaterials with their hexagonal packed layer repel water adherence however a missing atom from the top layer can allow easy access to water molecules by the next layer of atoms underneath making it transit from hydrophobic to hydrophilic said lead author of the study dr manish jaiswal a senior research associate in gaharwars lab this innovative technique opens many doors for expanded applications in several scientific and technological areas the superhydrophobic coating can be easily applied over various substrates such as glass tissue paper rubber or silica using the solvent evaporation method these superhydrophobic coatings have wide-spread applications not only in developing self-cleaning surfaces in nanoelectronics devices but also for biomedical applications specifically the study demonstrated that blood and cell culture media containing proteins do not adhere to the surface which is very promising in addition the team is currently exploring the potential applications of controlled hydrophobicity in stem cell fate the research was supported by the national institutes of health director's new innovator award by the national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering
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since 2015 the data-enabled discovery and design of energy materials (d3em) training program at texas a&m university has been developing interdisciplinary leaders across the college of science and college of engineering d3em is led by dr raymundo arroyave presidential impact fellow and professor in the department of materials science and engineering one of the most rewarding aspects of the program is the fact that we have such a diverse group of students with all kinds of life experiences said arroyave funded by the national science foundation the program focuses on empowering graduate students with the skills needed to create and apply data-driven approaches to the development design and application of advanced materials and machine learning for energy-related technologies through both fellowship research and networking opportunities it bolsters the students of today as they work toward a more sustainable tomorrow
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levi mcclenny a doctoral candidate in the department of electrical and computer engineering who holds a d3em fellowship and was recently appointed student regent has utilized the program to gain insight as to what happens at the microstructure level in materials in doing so he is working under the mentorship of dr ulisses braga-neto associate professor in the electrical and computer engineering department to investigate how to develop and manufacture better materials designed to accomplish specific tasks for the future
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the d3em group has been using data to learn a substantial amount about materials compositions and processing methods and has derived methods that are currently being fielded by entities such as nasa to create materials with specific properties that are useful for very specific applications said mcclenny the d3em research is a test bed for proof of concept that we can learn real practical and pragmatic methods of utilizing materials data to our advantage in addition to creating he is also looking into how materials break down in a collaborative project between the d3em and the army research lab mcclenny is investigating how machine learning can be applied to the fracturing process of materials in order to predict when breakage or deterioration will occur in military vehicles and ultimately prevent it from happening in the first place for example a military aircraft is comprised of a myriad of components – each in different stages of wear and tear by building smart vehicles that can begin to detect their own deterioration pilots and engineers will be able to better determine the overall state of their vehicle which will help with maintenance and operational requirements
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through his experience with d3em mcclenny has been given the opportunity to pursue his research passions while also honing his professional and technical skills to be able to effectively communicate within collaborate and lead an interdisciplinary team now and into his future career better material implies better structures and probably cheaper to manufacture as well said mcclenny as we learn more about how to manufacture materials to the exact specifications we desire we can remove the design constraints that exist with some materials used in modern structures machines and medicine doing so would allow us to manufacture the exact material required for a task and can have significant implications in improving the designs of the future and optimizing the designs of the past levi is a perfect example of the students we aspire to train as he not only brings his expertise in computer science and machine learning into a materials science program but his military perspective brings a sense of purpose to some of the problems we study as part of the program said arroyave harnessing his diverse experiences and dedication to a better future mcclenny is now taking steps toward his new appointment as student regent needless to say i was ecstatic (to learn about the appointment) this is an opportunity i have had my eyes on for years and it's incredibly exciting to see years of work pay off said mcclenny learn more about the data-enabled discovery and design of energy materials (d3em) training program
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kendrick lim completed his undergraduate education at texas a&m university in may during which he learned about biomedical engineering both in college station and overseas lim came to texas a&m knowing he wanted to pursue engineering but was unsure where to focus he began to research each major and stumbled upon biomedical engineering medicine hadn't been something i'd thought about as a high schooler but once i learned more about biomedical engineering and the large impact it can have on the world from a medical perspective i knew that was exactly what i wanted to pursue lim said throughout his studies in the program he said the amount of interdisciplinary learning in the department surprised him as did the close-knit atmosphere at both the faculty and staff levels freshman year all of the students are in 300-person classes and everyone is there for class time and then goes off to their own organizations friends and so forth lim said but in biomedical engineering everyone really knows each other and a lot of peoples best friends are in the department lim did not consider studying abroad when he started college after hearing about various programs and what he could gain from them lim signed up for a four-month faculty-led study abroad program in bonn germany the spring of his sophomore year he said it was an amazing experience he would never forget as it gave him a chance to learn about new cultures and immerse himself in a foreign environment its life changing to travel to another country with other students lim said its just a different kind of experience you can travel later on but i think its different if you travel as a student i dont know when youre going to get so much time to explore new frontiers learn about yourself and grow as a person while overseas lim took biomedical engineering classes to stay on track for graduation and worked with a german medical device company to innovate oxygenators and improve their efficiency working with the company that was a more involved experience where were trying to do device design and its actually applicable to real life versus traditional classroom practice lim said learning how to navigate in a new country was an experience in itself between work and class lim took advantage of free time to explore and travel we recognized that we werent going to be there after a couple of months and honestly i dont see when i would be able to travel for such a prolonged period of time lim said we ended up going to 12 countries seeing all the different countries foods cultures and architecture was an unforgettable experience for students looking into study abroad lim encouraged them to research programs and funding options the experience was so much more than just traveling abroad and you cant get that back once youre out of college lim said its very different to study abroad than travel abroad if you can find a study abroad program where you dont fall behind in your graduation degree plan or if youre okay with delaying graduation i would do it lim starts his graduate studies in biomedical engineering at texas a&m in the fall
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dr steven m wright royce e wisenbaker ii professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was elected fellow of the international academy of medical and biological engineering in recognition of his leadership and contributions to the field of medical and biological engineering at an international level wright is one of 24 fellows who will be inducted to the academy this year during the carnegie mellon forum on biomedical engineering in pittsburgh this september wright received his bachelors masters and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from the university of illinois urbana-champaign he joined texas a&m in 1988 where he established the magnetic resonance systems lab the focus of his research group has been in the application of electromagnetics and new technology to the development of low-cost and high-speed magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy using this technology to explore real-time magnetic resonance imaging at submillisecond frame rates wright is also a fellow of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers the international society of magnetic resonance in medicine and the american institute for medical and biological engineering
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artificial intelligence is making headlines from autonomous cars military and healthcare projects advancements and mishaps it has captured the hearts and minds of researchers science fiction writers and the general public alike to spur creativity encourage ingenuity and excite the leaders of tomorrow dr dileep kalathil discussed the reality of artificial intelligence (ai) and reinforcement learning to an audience of middle and high school students at the annual texas a&m university physics and engineering festival kalathil serves as an assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m i would definitely do it again said kalathil i like teaching and interacting with kids especially when they ask questions its a rewarding experience for me ironically taking place in stephen w hawking auditorium named after the late theoretical physicist who warned that such technology could be the end of mankind the presentation started at the very beginning: what is ai the current goal of artificial intelligence is to create an intelligent machine that can act rationally said kalathil and rationality is essentially only concerned with what decisions are made not the decision-making process
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to demonstrate this concept kalathil described two situations first a machine that is designed to clean a room second a machine that is designed to throw things around and make a mess while these two ais might seem counterproductive to one another they are both functioning within their programmed parameters thus they are both acting rationally although ai has been expanded to be able to play table tennis assist in surgery and translate spoken language in real time kalathil explained that actually emulating the human brain and creating a computer consciousness has been deemed unadvisable by researchers this is mostly due to the fact that the brain is not modular like a computer system similarly the human brain learns from reasonable understanding and a constantly changing memory of sensation stimuli topics and emotion ai programs learn from a controlled input of datasets and coding parameters which led the conversation to the role of reinforcement learning like a child learning through experience that jumping from heights can hurt and correcting their behavior to avoid pain kalathil said that ai systems can be programmed to function and grow through reinforcement learning at its core reinforcement learning (rl) revolves around the concept that optimal action and task completion is reinforced by a positive feedback reward rl relies upon machine software and algorithmic components to determine what the ideal action is based on feedback received from the environment
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however despite careful programming rl does not guarantee success on the first try an ai system will often try many different ways to accomplish its objective gathering and interpreting positive and negative feedback from each attempt to understand how successful it was and adjusting its method until the ideal outcome is achieved through this trial and error and feedback loop optimal actions are reinforced so like a child determining whether or not to jump from a certain height the system weighs its options against information gathered from previous attempts is the distance to the ground too far has a similar jump been taken before what was the outcome was there pain in that jump perhaps then another method should be used to get to the ground while rl is still in the early stages of application the industry is already finding uses for it from piloting autonomous aircrafts to predictive maintenance to smart gaming the future of ai is filled with endless opportunity and discovery we are developing artificial intelligence in order to create systems to gain a better understanding of human intelligence said kalathil like i told (the audience of students) we are living in a very very exciting era
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the texas a&m university college of engineering announced friday the death of dr m nazmul karim holder of the t michael o'connor chair ii and head of the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering a position he held since 2012 karim died friday june 21 over the course of an impressive 30-plus year career karim authored more than 250 refereed publications and gave over 400 technical invited and contributed presentations at national and international conferences he was the co-author of the textbook chemical and bioprocess control which is used in over 50 universities worldwide he graduated more than 25 doctoral students and was an american institute of chemical engineers (aiche) fellow karims research interests were in model-based control nonlinear control data-based control and optimization and bioprocess analysis and control last year the fuels & petrochemicals division of aiche named an award after him the professor m nazmul karim award in process control and automation naz was an esteemed researcher and an asset to the college of engineering said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering under his leadership the department was among the top chemical engineering programs in the country and he continuously worked to find ways to improve the program and attract top faculty and students karim earned his bachelors degree in chemical engineering from the bangladesh university of engineering and technology and his masters in control engineering and doctorate in chemical engineering from the university of manchester institute of science and technology funeral arrangements are pending
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a deeply personal motivation is helping to drive a texas a&m university researcher in her pursuit of better therapeutic technologies that could provide earlier diagnosis and more detailed progression tracking for neurodegenerative diseases such as parkinson's and alzheimers dr ya wang associate professor and morris e foster faculty fellow ii in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering is working to bridge the gap between science engineering and applications in health technologies through her research into the neurodegenerative diseases her research is supported through the national science foundation faculty early career development program (career) awarded in 2018
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it was wang's relationship with a close family member who has lived with parkinson's disease for more than 20 years that sparked an interest for her in investigating potential technologies that could one day contribute to the discovery of a cure "i am hoping to develop therapeutic technologies that might ultimately lead to the cure of neurodegenerative diseases such as parkinson's disease " wang said "this involves an understanding of how the robot-like magnetic nanoparticles transport in the brain environment and can utilize proximity sensing and machine learning" with no current cure or reliable early diagnosis methods the objectives for wang's research are two-fold: to develop advanced proximity sensors for early diagnosis by monitoring cognitive and activity evolutions of high potential subjects and develop innovative non-invasive therapeutic strategies for targeting and regenerating brain cells using biodegradable gold-coated magnetic nanorobots the nanobots wang's lab is working with are small enough to cross the blood-brain barrier yet large enough to be accurately controlled by external magnetic fields this technique could be used on a range of neurodegenerative diseases that inflict a progressive loss of neurons in the brain
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"technologies for early detection and non-invasive stimulations of specific inhibitory neurons deep in the brain have long been desired for clinical treatment of neurological diseases " she said "however to date neuroscientists have largely focused on biological phenomena with little engineered tools available for qualifying the disease progression -- mild cognitive/activity impairment neuron-degeneration -- in an accurate manner thus limiting the translation to clinical practice" nearly 58 million americans are living with alzheimer's disease and just under 1 million suffer from parkinson's disease with both disorders projected to see an increase in the coming years wang is hopeful her research helps generate progress toward the development of a successful treatment for these fast-spreading diseases "i hope the research conducted by my team can overcome intrinsic trial-and-error approaches usher biotechnology into a new era of early diagnosis precision medicine and can move closer to clinical success " wang said "combined with recent advances in artificial intelligence our work also holds a high potential for contributing to the development of nanorobotics lab-on-the chip and personalized medicine"
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texas a&m agrilife research and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) were recently awarded a grant from the us department of agricultures national institute of food and agriculture to study and develop super-repellent and anti-fouling surfaces for foods the grant will be used in their collaboration to help ensure the safety of fresh food products benefiting both consumers and the produce industry there is a need to reduce those outbreaks associated with microbial contamination that may take place in different operations along the fresh produce chain said dr luis cisneros-zevallos agrilife research food scientist and co-principal investigator for the project the surfaces we are designing avoid cross-contamination and reduce the risk of biofilm formation in recent years we have developed various types of nanotechnology-based coating with an intriguing combination of surface texture and chemistry to inhibit and prevent the attachment of microorganisms on plastics metals ceramic and glass at the laboratory scale said dr mustafa akbulut associate professor in the department of chemical engineering and principal investigator for the project with this project we will design novel coatings which are specifically tailored for the food industry and also suitable for large-scale production and application to achieve a broad impact on relevant stakeholders akbulut said food safety outbreaks in recent years have caused illnesses and deaths among consumers negatively affecting the fresh produce industry on a large scale after observing the natural morphology and chemistry of rice leaves which have hydrophobic super-repellent characteristics the team was inspired to create novel surfaces that mimicked leaves ability to reduce the attachment of microorganisms bioinspiration is key when it comes to using nanotechnology strategies specifically when you want to provide surfaces with unique characteristics of polarity and morphology akbulut said the interdisciplinary research team also includes texas a&m university food microbiologists drs matt taylor and alejandro castillo our team is a pioneer in this area in the us and worldwide cisneros-zevallos said we certainly believe that it will transform the way the fresh produce industry operates and we hope the industry will adopt many of the products our project will develop in the next few years of the grant for more information on the project read articles from the american chemical society's website or the journal food control view a clip demonstrating how to use dipping/spraying solution to create a nanotextured coating on youtube
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when a natural disaster strikes not all buildings will weather the storm even the smallest crack can cause the structural integrity and resiliency of a building to suffer making it unsafe for people to live and take shelter in basing his work on hurricane scenarios samuel leach a phd student in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering at texas a&m university is developing computational models that can relate building damage and structural characteristics to the overall state of a building post-disaster under the guidance of dr stephanie paal assistant professor in the department he is also developing a method to detect damage using drone footage this data-driven approach to evaluating structural resilience could not only make buildings more able to withstand catastrophic events but also streamline the repair process to allow people to return to their homes quicker once we have these models we can use them to understand what features of a building affect its structural resiliency the most if we can figure that out from this model then we can include that information in building codes and try to make suggestions about what should be implemented in future construction to make these buildings more resilient said leach his project is funded by the 2019 national science foundations graduate research fellowship program (grfp) which leach was recently inducted into founded in 1952 the grfp recognizes outstanding graduate students in stem across the nation each year this prestigious organization evaluates proposed research projects based on intellectual merit and broader impacts my (project) goal is to be able to use structural evaluations from hurricane damaged areas as well as pictures and video footage to develop a framework and algorithm to try and relate what factors affect structural resiliency said leach it is currently the responsibility of structural inspectors to go out and evaluate the damage and resiliency of effected buildings while this traditional approach works it takes time they can only walk through so many buildings in a day due to being limited by both the proximity between buildings the size of each structure and the roadway conditions connecting each however by combining the potential analytical and damage-detecting abilities of leachs computational model with the agility and usability of a drone inspections could be completed in a fraction of the time if i can give (the model) drone footage of a building it can identify the damage on that structure and then incorporate that with structural evaluations done by human inspectors " said leach "this can be used to develop other models that can classify these structures on a scale of livability hopefully we can implement this model into communities as a faster and more efficient way to handle post-disaster response knowing that i could actually make a difference in building safety and seeing the results of things like harvey its definitely something near and dear to my heart and i have a passion for national disaster recovery this wont only help structural engineering as a general field but it also may help families not lose their house or if they do it will allow communities help them get on their feet more quickly
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dr nancy m amato former regents professor and unocal professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has been named professor emeritus by the texas a&m university system board of regents amato joined the faculty at texas a&m in 1995 as an assistant professor in the department and in 1998 began co-directing the parasol lab it was really (dr amatos) passion and enthusiasm for course material and research that grabbed my attention said shawna thomas postdoctoral research associate in the parasol lab she has had a huge impact not just on me but on future generations of researchers amato served as interim department head for one year and since 2014 held the positions of senior director of the engineering honors program in the texas a&m college of engineering and co-coordinator of the computer science and engineering track of engineering honors (dr amatos) inspired vision and dedication to constant improvement allowed engineering honors to become what it is today said jacob brown 21 consistently amato has been recognized for her teaching and mentoring she is the recipient of the association for computing machinery (acm) award for teaching excellence texas a&m association of former students distinguished achievement award for teaching and the betty m unterberger award for outstanding service to honors education amato has graduated 23 doctoral students with most going on to careers in academia (10) or government or industry research labs (8) and the remaining going to industry (3) or postdoctoral research (2) amato has also worked with more than 100 undergraduate students in research her areas of focus include motion planning and robotics computational biology and geometry and parallel and distributed computing i was one of the first guinea pigs to try out some of her new research ideas im so glad that i did and a large part of that was due to her vision and passion for students and for learning said kevin kmetz 19 over the years amato has made significant research contributions and has been established as an authority figure in each of these areas she has received the texas a&m association of former students distinguished achievement award for research the national center for women & information in technologys harrold and notkin research and graduate mentoring award and the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) harriet b rigas award among others dr amatos dedication to texas a&m over the past 24 years is awe-inspiring said dr dilma da silva department head and professor her consistent pursuit of excellence impacted all aspects of our department with the emeritus title she remains part of our community and i will continue to reach out to her as a source of innovative ideas sound advice and energetic support amato received undergraduate degrees in mathematical sciences and economics from stanford university a masters degree in computer science from the university of california at berkeley and a doctoral degree in computer science from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign she is an association for the advancement of artificial intelligence american association for the advancement of science acm and ieee fellow and continues to hold leadership positions within these professional societies and organizations amato is now head of the department of computer science and abel bliss professor of engineering at the university of illinois at urbana-champaign
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dr bjorn birgisson a tees eminent professor and faculty member within the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering at texas a&m university has been elected as a foreign member of the royal swedish academy of engineering sciences (iva) the iva was founded in 1919 and is the first engineering science academy to be established in the world the membership of the academy includes 1 300 swedish and foreign elected fellows whose goal is to influence societal development and policymaking through scientific endeavors the academy strives to build bridges between business government academic and political entities across the areas of engineering research birgisson is one of nine new members joining the iva contributing both his professional academic and industry experience with a combined 10 years in academic leadership he has held several high-level positions including research and development he received a phd in civil engineering from the university of minnesota and an ms in civil engineering from cornell university his research interests include transportation pavements nondestructive testing and materials science engineering this honor is much more than a personal recognition for me birgisson said this recognition is not for only myself but for all my fellow collaborators from the past teams i have worked on to my current home at texas a&m this honor is reflective of the world-class achievements in infrastructure engineering that we have achieved together
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ashley holt biomedical engineering senior discovered soon after starting at texas a&m university that research was her calling holt said she started looking into engineering in high school when she realized how much she enjoyed math and science her older sister was pursuing biomedical engineering at the university of illinois and after learning more holt decided to study engineering as well my senior year of high school i took advanced placement biology and that was probably one of my favorite classes it was really fun holt said coming into college i knew i wanted to pursue engineering and i had a feeling that i wanted to work in the life sciences holt joined the texas a&m chapter of the biomedical engineering society her freshman year which she said solidified her desire to be in biomedical engineering as it allowed her to fulfill her vision to work with tools to help people she was accepted into the national beckman scholars program her freshman year which started her path in research she began working in the department of biochemistry and biophysics with dr ry young where she has experimented with viruses that attack bacteria specifically e coli we study how they kill the bacteria what proteins they use to kill it holt said its been really exciting work
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the beckman scholars program is sponsored by the arnold and mabel beckman foundation which annually selects institutions across the country that demonstrate a significant commitment to undergraduate research in chemistry the biological sciences and/or interdisciplinary combinations selected students from each college are required to have 10 hours a week of research during the fall and spring semesters as well as summer hours its like a part-time job holt said my freshman year i dont think i really knew i wanted to do research starting in the beckman scholars program really changed my college career holt found one advantage of working with bacteria is they grow quickly taking two hours compared to the several days it takes to grow human and other eukaryotic cells i think its been really good for learning how to set up experiments and run tests because if you make mistakes you can grow another batch in a couple hours holt said during her time at the lab she has seen all sides of research ranging from seeing a project hit a dead end to discovering the function of a protein in a new virus we wanted to learn more about this particular protein that we found so weve been doing lots of different experiments to really understand the process that it uses to do this function holt said this particular protein disrupts the outer membrane of e coli its different than all the other outer membrane disrupting proteins that have been found holt believes the discovery and further research could lead to new potential antibiotic drugs the protein that we found has some similarities to antibiotic proteins that we have in our bodies its more similar than the other outer membrane disrupting proteins that have been found before holt said its really interesting for potential therapeutic applications if we can test these proteins by producing them within the bacteria it gives us new things that we can test and new tools to test antibiotic proteins
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dr jeffrey bullard a materials research engineer at the national institute of standards and technology within the us department of commerce will be joining the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering in fall 2019 as a professor bullard will be contributing his experience in materials science a branch of engineering that seeks to develop or improve materials including structural materials like concrete by studying the relationships among their composition structure and performance he will be conducting research at the center for infrastructure renewal (cir) an $80 million 138 000-square-foot multidisciplinary research center that boasts state-of-the-art facilities aimed at making infrastructure smarter more resilient and longer lasting what attracted me initially about the cir was the size and modernity of it said bullard it seems like there is a lot of potential for new capabilities to be installed there and that there is a strong emphasis on the intersection between infrastructure and the materials engineering disciplines his research is focused on understanding and ultimately predicting how chemistry and physics govern the performance of a material over the span of its service life models that accurately predict the time-dependence of a materials performance can be a powerful aid to the challenge of managing civil infrastructure components such as bridges buildings and pavements that people use every day in my research i focus on how to predict properties with time bullard said for example if were pouring concrete i want to know the structure-property relationships of the mixture so that the time of setting and the rate of hardening can be predicted in advance his area of research also has other implications such as gaining an improved understanding of how long a material will last before it will need repair or replacement potentially saving taxpayer dollars and limiting the risk associated with periodic manual inspections bullard is currently working on an experimental program for characterizing the material properties that determine how fast cement components react with water in a given environment he is also focused on creating a more generalized model that can simulate these reactions for a variety of materials that are used in civil engineering geochemistry applications and materials science ive had a good relationship and productive research collaborations with zach grasley (the director of the cir and a professor within the department) for the last five or six years and he has been instrumental in helping me understand the potential of the cir and all of the other resources on campus for conducting world-class research bullard said im looking forward to working with the department and my continued collaboration with him at the cir
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five students from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university have been awarded 2019 national graduate fellowships christine greve was awarded the national defense science and engineering graduate (ndseg) fellowship she currently works at the plasma dynamics modeling laboratory the goal of greves ndseg research proposal titled data-driven calibration model of hall effect thruster dynamics is to improve predictive modeling capabilities for in-space electric propulsion (ep) systems while physics-based models have been developed and used to investigate ep devices validation of the simulation with experimental data could be time consuming the research focuses on developing data-driven methods that employ experimental data to advance our understanding of the plasma flows enabling more rapid development of new space propulsion technologies greve worked as a summer intern at the air force research laboratory and received the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics 20 twenties award in 2018 during her bachelors studies at the university of oklahoma she worked three summers at the nasa marshall space flight center and was named an astronaut foundation scholar in 2016 greve is advised dr kentaro hara logan kunka was awarded the department of energy computational science graduate fellowship (csgf) the fellowship includes four years of support (2018-2022) and summer practicum at a department of energy national lab kunkas current research focus is on the numerical simulation of high-speed reacting flows specifically he is looking at the use of detonation waves for aerospace propulsion systems kunka graduated from oklahoma state university (osu) in 2018 with degrees in both aerospace and mechanical engineering while an undergraduate he was extensively involved in undergraduate research at osu and interned at the sandia national laboratory combustion research facility which sparked his interest in combustion simulation kunka began graduate studies at texas a&m in the fall of 2018 he is advised by dr alexei poludnenko joseph carlson was awarded the ndseg carlsons research focuses on hypersonic morphing control surfaces utilizing a combination of hypersonic aerothermodynamic investigation controls development and conceptual design to perform in-depth examinations of control surfaces for high-speed aerospace vehicles a new understanding of the underlying physical mechanisms of curved control surfaces will lead to new control concepts that lower drag reduce heat loads and increase performance this work will be conducted at the national aerothermochemistry and hypersonics laboratory carlson is co-advised by dr rodney bowersox and dr nathan tichenor carl leake was awarded the nasa space technology research fellowship (nstrf) leake is researching the n-dimensional k-vector and theory of connections his fellowship proposal is titled "improving the fidelity of general flexible multibody dynamic simulations " and will focus on improving the ability to simulate flexible multibody structures this simulation capability is a critical component in the design of a large variety of systems including extraterrestrial rotorcraft systems leake is advised by dr daniele mortari hunter johnston was awarded the nstrf johnston submitted the proposal real-time optimal guidance via theory of connections with the next generation of space missions beyond earth orbit a new generation of algorithms must be developed to decrease the reliance on earth-based navigation techniques in fact the ability to execute orbital maneuvers rendezvous and landing procedures on board and in real time is of great importance for future missions the focus of my research is to apply a technique called the theory of connections (which has been applied to solve differential equations) in order to develop a solution for real-time optimal landing johnston is advised by mortari
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rigorous in their pursuits and aspirations a team of former mechanical engineering students has catapulted a small project they started at texas a&m university in fall 2017 called swing sleeve into a marketable product that has found a home in the golfing industry swing sleeve enables golfers to see their arms in virtual reality allowing them to capture their arm motions as they swing the objective of this product is to give golfers the ability to analyze their swings and in turn improve their game; however this products market was not always evident this project is as real as it gets chief executive officer ian cash '17 said i first got involved in this project because my friend and computer science engineer alex hansen approached me with the idea to develop a device to track arm motion in virtual reality this idea then transitioned into a personal project for cashs senior design class where he picked up six more team members who saw value in this undertaking eventually they decided to see how the product would test out in the market through the national science foundation (nsf) i-corps site program at texas a&m that allows students a chance to hold interviews with potential customers to see observe the market potential in their products after some difficulties and doubts the team learned perseverance and the true strength behind their team
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eventually the group developed trust in their aspirations as well as faith in their goals i firmly believe in the product that we are creating and i want to be part of something revolutionary from the very beginning chief product officer cesar fuentes '18 said the project attracted many students at first many who left other opportunities behind to become a part of it i went to see ian and his teammate alex present their first prototype at the texas a&m engineering project showcase advisor sara van kalker '18 said my mind was blown and i knew i had to try to be part of the team so i asked to join then proceeded to leave my summer internship with general electric after graduation and successful customer reviews they built their company alba technologies as the first step of their startup cash said that the name alba comes from the word albatross: one of the rarest scores a golfer can achieve that requires a person to get the ball in the hole with just two strokes instead of the five expected for it i am absolutely obsessed with the company and i eat breathe and live alba cash said
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the team largely credits their successes thus far to texas a&m and their mentors weve been working nonstop making sacrifices working crazy hours and learning new skills at a rapid-fire pace and texas a&m has been so generous cash said after all a wise man learns from his mistakes but an even wiser man also learns from others among the teams mentors at texas a&m was dr waqar mohiuddin a research assistant professor in the j mike walker ‘66 department of mechanical engineering who said cash and his team serve as a great example for the potential students have to pursue their ideas while in school the ultimate pleasure i can receive as a mentor is to see students take an idea continue to shape it and bring it out into the world with passion mohiuddin said when i talk about ian cash and his team my students are motivated by their story mohiuddin said having the opportunity to help guide cash in the early stages of his idea through the formation of his team in the meen 210 and meen 402 courses respectively was a rewarding experience while few students pursue their own ideas to the same extent as cash and his team mohiuddin said he encourages them all to explore their potential as early as possible i think we should continue to nurture this excitement in our students and give them the resources and encouragement to pursue their ideas ideally as early as their freshman or sophomore year before they get too busy with their studies and internships he said at the end of my first lecture i always tell my sophomore students this is an opportunity for them to take control in their hands looking forward mohiuddin said he is excited to see where cash and his team take their company as they continue to move their work forward into the market alba technologys swing sleeve product will launch in the market soon which has caused a range of emotions for the team its a nerve-racking experience for us because you have investors that have put big money into us teammates that have made big sacrifices and youd like to see all of that pay off cash said but im very excited for the team because theyre here through thick and thin ultimately cash said that its important to take risks when one has as big dreams as he and his company did as cliché as it is thats the attitude you have to take to succeed because you dont get to go the entrepreneurial route without taking major risks cash said overall my teams chemistry willingness to push through ability to come up with creative solutions learn from mistakes collaborate and take ownership are beyond anything ive ever seen and i owe it all to that
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the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was well-represented at the annual physics and engineering festival hosted by the department of physics and astronomy at texas a&m on april 6 the event boasted over 200 interactive demonstrations and lectures and over 7 000 visitors attended dr dileep kalathil assistant professor and david gent former student represented the electrical and computer engineering department during the festival and their presentations resonated with the community drawing interest to the field of electrical engineering cultivating the engineering minds of the future kalathil presented his research in artificial intelligence and reinforcement learning to an audience of middle and high school students his talk which spurred interaction and post-presentation interest covered the current state of artificial intelligence research what possibilities it holds how it can be applied and where it is going in the future we are developing artificial intelligence in order to create systems to gain a better understanding of human intelligence kalathil said like i told the students we are living in a very very exciting era
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gent showcased several demonstrations including a morse code telegraph which seemed to draw the largest crowd of onlookers as he decoded visitors names by ear another popular display was the wireless spark gap transmitter replica built by gent and similar to the transmitter that saved passengers on the rms titanic in 1912 i explained how these two basic devices turned electric signals on and off to represent information gent said this is a concept electrical engineers developed into countless applications and products in our current digital age both kalathil and gent said that there was no shortage of interest in their demonstrations with both parents and children excited and engaged by what they saw the department of electrical and computer engineering actively participates in the physics and engineering festival and uses this opportunity to highlight and share the exciting work being conducted
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a team of students in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university recently took first place at the sick tim$10k robotics competition for their solution to foreign object detection on airport tarmacs the team included godofredo freddy sanchez daniel hodapp madison bruns and emily stuart they were advised by dr stavros kalafatis professor of practice and associate department head dr kevin nowka professor of practice and dr john lusher ii associate professor of practice in addition to a $5 000 grand prize the team also won a trip to sick incs headquarters in germany founded in 1946 by dr eh erwin sick sick inc is a global leader in the manufacturing of industry sensors safety systems machine vision encoders and automatic identification products their cutting-edge technologies provide solutions for controlling processes securely and efficiently protecting individuals from accidents and preventing damage to the environment at the inaugural sick tim$10k the company challenged teams across the nation to innovate a robotic prototype that incorporated a 270° sick lidar sensor to solve a real-world problem faced by industry as part of their two-semester senior design capstone class the team identified needs of aircrafts and airports and developed an automated guided vehicle that detects foreign object debris (fod) such as screws or metal strips from planes on airport tarmacs as their robot drives around the runway it utilizes the 270° sick lidar sensor to scan and locate anything that could affect the tarmac surface and the takeoff and landing of aircrafts now with the semester over they took a moment to reminisce about their successful project and lessons learned along the way
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q: what problem does your project address sanchez: fod on airport runways are problematic for airports boeing has reported that fod costs the company about $4 billion a year in airplane repairs our lidar fod detection system solves this problem by autonomously scanning the runway and reporting the presence of fod to a web application database within seconds q: where did the idea for this design come from hodapp: the sick tim$10k challenge was very open-ended we actually spent a good one to two weeks just brainstorming ideas of what we could do i had remembered watching a video a couple years ago about fod walks done by people and thought that using a robotic system to find and create a log of fod would be a great idea for our project i pitched it to the team and all of us really liked it madison and emily both have parents in the military and madison had done a fod walk before which added a bit of personal connection to the project
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q: what factors influenced the design bruns: there were many factors we needed to take into account while designing our prototype for example one of the first decisions we needed to make was whether to proceed with a rover or a drone we decided on a rover because of the capabilities of our lidar sensor the sensor needed to be stable enough and at a constant distance from the ground in order to accurately detect fod and we felt like a drone would be too unpredictable for that purpose other design aspects such as the distance between the sensor and camera were decided based on the speed and timing of the overall system our rover was generously provided to us by the electrical and computer engineering department and we built every other aspect around that q: how does this design differ from other solutions to this problem bruns: according to current airport inspection practices regarding fod (2011) most airports detect fod visually and just over one quarter of airports use an electronic database for documenting fod our system allows for an autonomous sweep of runways to check for fod minimizing human interaction and reducing the risk of human error we also provide an electronic database that can be accessed by airport personnel on any device with an internet connection making it so that records of fod can be efficiently kept and the fod itself can be efficiently taken care of q: what impact could this project have stuart: the goal for our project was to minimize human error in the detection of fod on airport runways and save the aviation industry money by preventing accidents caused by fod the current methods of detection include human fod walks where airport personnel stand shoulder to shoulder and pick up any debris they see by using the lidar sensor our rover will be able to detect objects that may potentially be overlooked by humans the industry can save millions of dollars by improving the accuracy of their detection methods q: what were your takeaways from the experience sanchez: perseverance and team collaboration are the two words that first come to my mind these were some of the key ingredients necessary to successfully implement a functional prototype that met all the requirements given by sick hodapp: i really enjoy doing projects like this creating designing programming and building around constraints and specifications this competition was right up my ally and i think that what i came away with is the importance of teamwork communication and putting forth the best effort into our work i was very fortunate to have teammates that i got along with so well and was able to be in close communication with this allowed us to efficiently and seamlessly integrate the parts of the project we each worked on something that wouldnt have been possible without communication we put our very best efforts into this project and it paid off bruns: i am so humbled to have been part of this team and i am so proud of what we were able to accomplish everyone brought something unique to the team and taught me something (or a lot of things) along the way one of my main takeaways has been the value of personal growth looking back to where i was and what i knew a year ago i am so grateful for all that i have learned throughout this process it is an incredible feeling to have taken a real-world problem and worked to create a solution that can help save money and lives in the future stuart: one of the big takeaways i got from participating in sick tim$10k is how to view a project from a customer solutions viewpoint it was rewarding to start with nothing but a sensor and create a working prototype of our own idea at the end of the year i enjoyed working with my team and am grateful for the skills i gained through working alongside them
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clean drinking water is necessary for sustaining life as natural freshwater sources such as springs lakes and rivers become contaminated because populations and pollution continue to increase finding innovative solutions to enhance the purification process of water is becoming more imperative each day funded by the national science foundation dr shankar chellam j walter "deak" porter '22 & james w "bud" porter '51 professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering at texas a&m university is leading collaborative efforts to investigate how to enhance water filters that turn wastewater to drinking water the collaborators include dr nick cogan a professor in the mathematics department at florida state university and field collaborators from orange county california and el paso texas municipalities their research and filter-protection plans will not only help improve the process of transforming wastewater into a clean recyclable source of drinking water but will also aid purification companies in cutting down on the cost of water filtration
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we are now forced to identify other sources for drinking water by definition this means we are going to exploit waters with a higher level of pollution one such supply is our own municipal wastewater said chellam my group is working on the advanced purification of this water and in some sense increasing the reliability of the treatment so that you will get safe drinking water regardless of the source chellam said that wastewater treatment for potable water production has to be much more meticulous than traditional drinking water treatments due to the impaired quality of the source to compensate for this water resource facilities will add multiple points of redundancy to the process to be absolutely sure that the final product is pure safe and ready to drink an integral part of this process involves running water through a series of water filters that catch debris and other contaminants similar to a water filter in a refrigerator or pitcher we are trying to improve the life and performance of these filters said chellam municipalities benefit from collaborations with universities like texas a&m which can provide them advanced instrumentation to analyze these filters as well as the support of skillful and dedicated researchers by breaking open both a new and a used filter and comparing the two chellam and his team have been able to discover how much and what materials are clogging up the filter making it unusable and causing the need for repair what my student found is that when you scrape the gunk off of the filter you will find a significant amount of bacteria said chellam this is what messes up the water filtration during wastewater reclamation or potable reuse of municipal wastewater in order to unclog these filters and extend their lives effectiveness and functionality chellam and his team have a two-fold plan they will first fortify and protect the high-grade filter by utilizing coagulation technologies and pre-filtering the water through a coarse wall of material that will catch aggregated contaminants before they can reach the filter while this material will not collect all of the debris in the water and will eventually collect too much debris to allow water through it will reduce the amount of debris that the current filters are subjected to then once the wall and filter become clogged the water will be diverted down another waterway and the filter will be taken offline to be cleaned with a chemical mixture that combats the type of contaminants that are causing the clogging one of the advantages we have is that because we are able to cut open the filter and do these analyses we can to some extent tailor the cleaning agent to what we find said chellam so if we find a certain kind of foulant that is clogging up the filter we can try to match it to the kind of acid or cleaner that will remove that particular substance through this process the filter and coarse material will be cleansed unclogged and reintroduced into the flow transforming wastewater into safe drinking water we all want to work on meaningful projects and thats why i became an environmental engineer said chellam i got my undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering and worked for a manufacturing plant where i was responsible for the maintenance of the machines including their waste that was when i realized i could either make money and put my philosophy aside or try and follow a different path and look at water/wastewater treatment thats what i did
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during a boring summer vacation last year duke university undergraduate student joshua farahzad came up with the idea to build an unmanned rocket and send it into outer space knowing he couldnt do it alone he sent out an email to various collegiate rocketry teams across the country gerardo barillas an undergraduate student in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university answered the call and joined operation space operation space is made up of about 50 talented students from more than 25 universities across the united states and canada their goal was to successfully launch a rocket built and designed remotely by college students across the country after completion operation space took their final project to the federally licensed 18 000 acre-launch complex next to the us armys white sands missile range in new mexico in may
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a: i got involved because i wanted to learn more about rockets in general i knew i was going to take the senior capstone design rocket class the upcoming school year so i thought this would be beneficial i thought this goal was achievable because i had seen what the texas a&m sounding rocketry team could do as well as other college teams across the us
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a: i was part of the structures sub team and was in charge of the vast majority of computer-aided design (cad) work done for the rocket as well as the lead for the nose cone design and shape i was also one of the nine team members that met up for build week at nashville tennessee in august of 2018
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a: in order for the team to get together for a build period we had at least two if not more meetings per week including weekends since we were all mostly in different time zones and doing different things during the summer we used the app slack to communicate with our respective sub teams and the rest of the team google hangouts as our video chat email and phone calls whenever things were urgent for the build week we decided to only have the necessary people attend since space would be limited and we did not want teammates to have nothing to do while others worked
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a: we had two launches because we had two identical rockets one launched on may 31 and the other on june 1 the first rocket cleared the tower ignited its second stage but came apart at around 100 000 ft because we lost a fin for the second launch we also cleared the tower and ignited the second stage but this time we kept going up straight as an arrow from watching the livestream i heard we had reached at least an 85 km altitude or 85% of the way to space but the official numbers have not been disclosed yet
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a: the big picture goal was to show everyone around the world that such a technically challenging project can be successful if determined individuals come together and work hard we also wanted to prove that working remotely and through the internet is a viable way to come together and build something complex
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a: my biggest takeaway from being on this team is that you dont have to be working in industry or have a lot of money in order to take on daunting engineering challenges all it takes is a group of people to really dive into/commit to the project
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a: as of right now i am working for nasa at the johnson space center in houston as a payload systems engineer intern i am hoping at the end of the internship i will be offered a full-time position i also recently received notice that i have been admitted to texas a&ms aerospace masters program i would really love to stay here and learn but i also want a masters degree so im still in the process of deciding what my next step will be
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intrigued by the thought of creating an online space for people to connect through common interests a team of senior computer science and engineering students enrolled in a capstone design course pursued this passion to develop an app dedicated to just this purpose we saw that a large part of the a&m student culture is formed around communities said muin momin previous research and our initial findings showed that humans have a strong desire to belong in a community and this is especially important in a university setting where mental health should be a priority studies have also shown that people are happier when they have more offline social interaction
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momin and his team members alishah dholasaniya and zackary christie hit the drawing board and came up with an idea to create a mobile application groupup to allow users to quickly find create and join events around them and chat with fellow attendees once a user logs in they are presented with a map that shows them all events that are happening around them momin said they can then very easily filter through those events based on the category they are interested in like sports social food and education once a user joins an event they have the ability to chat with other members of the same event christie said the chat can be useful for anything from asking about logistics of the event to just socializing with other members the team built the application with simplicity in mind and focused on fast user experience and the ability to quickly find something the user is interested in and can jump into what excites me most about groupup is its unique ability to cater to spontaneous informal events that can be created by anyone dholasaniya said these types of events are often overlooked by other event management systems but are the focus of groupup the application will be available via the app store at the end of the spring semester
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once our application has been widely adopted beyond texas a&m we want to conduct a study that will hopefully validate our work and show that people are happier when they are part of a community and have more offline social interactions momin said we think groupup can help people with this the team was advised by dr tracy hammond professor in the department as members of her senior capstone design course they were recently awarded first place for their undergraduate oral presentation in the engineering category during the university-wide student research week in march in april they also earned first place in the computer science and engineering capstone design competition at the annual engineering project showcase groupup will have an enormous impact on helping people find their place in a community and help them to connect with others through similar interests dholasaniya said
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more minority students at texas a&m university have been given the chance to explore opportunities that benefit them thanks to a grant offered by the national action council for minorities in engineering (nacme) with the intention to create a larger proportion of african american american indian and hispanic students in stem careers the nacme scholars program issues $4 million between partner institutions and individual awards annually in 2014 the college of engineering received a block grant for over $600 000 in scholarships to support 14 nacme scholars we are beyond thrilled to have had nacme select us to carry on this block grant to present opportunities to our minority students and we have shown that it has worked based on our retention and the gpas of our students said dr sonia garcia senior director of access and inclusion the grant offers $3 000 annually to a recipient until graduation and since its inception the program has maintained 100% retention several students in the first cohort have graduated and gone on to pursue a graduate degree or work in industry the scholarship continues to support a new cohort each year and recipients have continuously maintained a high gpa during the last academic year the cumulative gpa was 33
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the nacme scholarship program has benefitted me by enabling me to pay for my college education with less time spent as a student worker civil engineering graduate jose emanuel quiros said as an undergraduate i was thus able to spend more time on my studies and getting involved with organizations on campus not only is this scholarship program able to help students financial needs but it gives them the chance to make connections that in turn expand their professional networks representatives from the programs corporate sponsors meet with nacme scholars giving the students a chance to network and improve their soft skills coming into college i was a bit intimidated by the idea of going to an enormous career fair with hundreds of companies and thousands of representatives quiros said however having a chance to interact with these professionals in a smaller setting helped me gain confidence in myself and my speaking abilities as a result of this partnership with industry many nacme scholars have also found internships within these companies nacme helped me acquire internships at bp as a subsea operations engineer and microsoft electromechanical sourcing engineer by fostering a community that allowed me to network and build relationships with practicing engineers senior mechanical engineering student maricarmen del toro said this scholarship program pushes students to branch out further cement their passions in engineering and ultimately gives students a window to expand their abilities receiving financial support from nacme has helped me identify early in my college career the need to diversify my set of skills polish those i had already acquired and continuously challenge myself to reach new heights del toro said i cannot express enough my gratitude toward nacme and everyone else that has made this possible kim foli ikpo contributed to this article
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chiranjivi botre a phd student in dr m nazmul karims research group has been awarded an f&pd (fuels & petrochemicals division) outstanding presentation award for a talk entitled detection and isolation of abnormal event in nonlinear industrial processes by a novel data-based method the award was announced at the american institute of chemical engineers (aiche) 2019 spring meeting one of the most important aspects in chemical plant operation is the detection and isolation of faults and/or abnormalities throughout the normal operation of a plant any number of things can go wrong from contamination to loss of pressure or equipment failure the most common approaches to fault detection are based in data collection and monitoring the majority of the research in this area has focused on linear data-based monitoring techniques botre and the karim group as a whole have developed a novel approach to detecting abnormalities and faults in industrial processes that dramatically improve the performance over existing techniques the new approach combines three main components: the use of a nonlinear data-based model the use of optimization tools and the use of advanced statistical techniques botre and the karim group previously won an f&pd outstanding presentation award in 2017 for a presentation focused specifically on the development of the nonlinear data-based model the winner of the 2019 professor m nazmul karim award in process control and automation was also announced james beall iv of emerson automation solutions in bryan texas won the award for his paper entitled specifying control valve performance to achieve desired process performance beall is the second winner of the award which is named after dr m nazmul karim holder of the t michael o'connor chair ii and head of the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university
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the association for computing machinery's special interest group on design automation (sigda) has recognized dr jeyavijayan "jv" rajendran assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university with the sigda outstanding new faculty award this prestigious accolade honors a faculty member who is early in their career and demonstrates outstanding potential as an educator and/or researcher in the field of electronic design automation id like to thank texas a&m for providing me the right set of resources and mentors and also the students and my fellow faculty my students have been amazing they push me and challenge me they give me the bandwidth and motivation to explore more said rajendran im grateful for them and for the invaluable mentorship ive received from my fellow faculty members when considering how to keep digital information safe many people think about cybersecurity hacking or various malware programs that protect the software of a computer however it is just as critical for the hardware – computer chips integrated circuits etc – to be secure hardware has become the weakest link in the security system of computers and while there are a lot of good techniques that exist for software security attackers will always target the weakest link for better or worse hardware has become that said rajendran this is largely due to the globalization of manufacturing materials with technology advancing and the increasing reliance on computers for everyday life companies often outsource the creation and testing of computer hardware components to various countries across the world while this allows businesses to cut costs and keep up with product demands it also opens the doors to security risks stemming from untrustworthy foundries test facilities and users whether a culprit pirates a design reverse engineers an integrated circuit to gain access to a computer system inserts trojans into the hardware or simply recycles a used information system into the construction of a new computer hardware has become a predominant security risk
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to combat this rajendran and a team of researchers have created a provably-secure logic locking technique – the first of its kind – that can prevent attacks from untrusted manufacturers and distributers like a key to a safe logic locking provides a means to protect the original design of a circuit and keep it from being tampered with by outside forces including piracy counterfeiting hardware trojans reverse engineering and overbuilding attacks while logic locking has been used for many years in many ways to fortify hardware the team was the first to create a method that shows the quantifiable and provable resilience trade-off between all known and anticipated attacks learn more about their findings in provably-secure logic locking: from theory to practice his work and algorithmic studies have additionally led to the fabrication of the worlds inaugural piracy-resilient processor design in partnership with global foundries in a project that stands to impact labs companies and government agencies alike however along with making a mark on industry rajendran is dedicated to supporting his students along with integrating interactive discussions and projects into his coursework he has provided mentorship to both graduate and undergraduate researchers he has acted as a guide in projects presenting research opportunities as fun and exciting rather than intimidating and tedious this devotion to enhancing education prompted rajendran to co-found hack@dac a global student hardware security competition that bridges the gap between industry government agencies and academia by challenging student teams to solve real-world electronic design automation problems held for the first time in 2017 hack@dac attracted 50 researchers in 2018 that number grew to 54 student teams worldwide through this several security vulnerabilities were found in open-source processer designs which were then relayed to designers so that they could be fixed young faculty members are always pushing themselves to stand out am i solving the right problems am i solving them correctly how can i do better said rajendran accolades like the sigda outstanding new faculty award show that the community values young faculty and their contributions its a confidence boost to keep going a branch of the association for computing machinery sigda strives to advance the knowledge and skills of electronic design automation around the globe through grants recognitions and conferences sigda connects expert professionals and students in order to expand and enhance the research and application of electronic design automation technologies
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three interdisciplinary student teams led by their faculty advisor dr wayne hung won top prizes at two student competitions that were held earlier this year the society of manufacturing engineers (sme) organizes manufacturing events at major manufacturing hubs across the united states on feb 23-25 they hosted a 3d printing student competition during the houstex manufacturing exhibition event at the george r brown convention center in houston this competition encouraged students to be familiar with engineering design and ideation by: creation of 3d concepts innovative ideas applied to products that reduce energy and waste recycling wasted products to conserve resources understanding additive manufacturing processes and limitations being energy conscious enhancing manufacturing knowledge with a guided tour at the houstex exhibition
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two teams won first and second place while competing against 13 other teams from across the country the teams came up with environmentally friendly solutions by using recycled biomaterials such as coffee powder and saw dust for 3d printing useful objects each team won a cash prize new 3d printers of their choices and plaques from sme in april manufacturing and mechanical engineering technology program students kenny adams benjamin siperek jimmy jaraczewski and matthew retault competed against more than 90 international teams at the aluminum extrusion competition and placed second the competition challenged designers and engineers to think about aluminum extrusions as a holistic solution to a design problem by creating a product or system that includes at least one extruded aluminum component
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solutions that have already been created include high-impact glass plywood and installing exterior shutters however these designs can be expensive or have a very cumbersome installation process as well as being permanent or requiring nails to be driven into the walls of the structure the design the team came up with is a compression system that holds plywood or other material securely in front of the area it is protecting the team received a scholarship prize and certificate
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harsh juneja a former student of the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been honored with exxonmobils pinnacle award for 2018 he was recognized for his outstanding work and dedication as a member of the engineering services team at the baton rouge refinery this distinguished accolade recognizes engineering innovation that fundamentally changes the way that work is done at exxonmobil it is such an honor to receive the pinnacle award which came as a pleasant surprise i feel humbled and extremely grateful for being accorded this award by exxonmobil said juneja receiving this award came as a vindication of my efforts and a symbol of recognition by exxonmobil for the hard work put in by all its employees in their quest for excellence it reignites the motivation in me to keep putting my best effort into my work each day while striving to stay positive and focused on growth and improvement opportunities harsh was always very curious on a wide range of technical subject matters and also hardworking said dr prasad enjeti ti professor iii in analog engineering and associate dean for academic affairs its an incredible and perhaps the most rewarding feeling to see your students whom you mentored and worked with closely succeed in their profession currently a section supervisor in the operations support department juneja oversees a team of 13 chemical engineers that support exxonmobils fluid catalytic cracking sulfur recovery alkylation and various distillation technologies at their baton rouge refinery since my education and core competency is in electrical engineering this role keeps me challenged and provides new opportunities to expand my knowledge of chemical engineering while developing strong management and leadership skills in order to best serve my team and the company said juneja in addition to his education at texas a&m juneja felt the core values he learned there left a significant impact on him and have set the foundation on which he has built his career by merging these values with those of exxonmobil juneja said he is continuously reminded to take a moment for self-reflection and live with a strong sense of purpose i would like to thank my graduate advisor dr enjeti for being instrumental in always motivating me to strive for excellence he instilled in me a desire to challenge the status quo in efforts to seek improvement and advancement said juneja dr enjeti inspired me to always look for ways to innovate innovation is what will keep a company in business help that company evolve with the world around it and help us all achieve more than we may imagine possible
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a team of researchers from texas a&m university and texas a&m university at qatar were awarded the best conference paper award from the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) communications society technical committee on green communications and computing the award was given to postdoctoral fellow dr han-bae kong; assistant research scientist dr muhammad ismail; and professor dr khalid qaraqe from texas a&m at qatar; and dr erchin serpedin from texas a&m for the outstanding scientific contributions reported in their paper titled "energy efficient optimization of base station density for vlc networks" this paper was presented at the ieee international conference on communications (icc) that was hosted by the city of shanghai china may 20-24 icc is one of the flagship conferences of the ieee communications society and is dedicated to promoting innovation in all aspects of communications serpedin is a professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at texas a&m university in college station his research interests lie in the fields of signal processing machine learning and big data analytics and their applications in bioinformatics wireless communications cybersecurity and smart grids qaraqe is a professor in the electrical and computer engineering program at texas a&m university at qatar his research interests lie in the fields of wireless communications and remote health technologies
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petroleum engineering former student janeen judah 81 was recently appointed to the board of directors for jagged peak energy she is also a director for patterson-uti energy crestwood equity holdings and aethon energy judah was named to the top 25 influential women in energy by hart energy/oil & gas investor magazine was the president of chevron environmental management company general manager of chevrons southern african unit and president of the society of petroleum engineers (spe) she is a longtime member of both the texas a&m university college of engineering and petroleum engineering advisory boards and in 2015 was named outstanding alumni of the college of engineering judah discusses her recent accomplishment as well as the rest of her illustrious career and how her story could encourage young engineers entering the field
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q: why did you choose petroleum engineering as a degree a: my dad is an engineer and many of the women engineers in that very first wave in the 1970s and 80s that studied engineering were daughters of engineers it was still a pretty unusual career choice for a girl at the time i grew up in houston around the oil business and it always fascinated me i knew i was either going to study chemical or petroleum engineering and i have no regrets im one of the few people who never actually changed their major while in school i came in to study petroleum engineering and i left with not one but two degrees in it the oil and gas industry is always fascinating – but the up/down business cycle frightens people its high stakes technology-intensive and constantly reinventing itself i am still learning in my new role as a corporate director q: jagged peak energy will be your fourth company for whom you are on the board of directors what does being a director for a public company look like a: being a director is a different role than management the board hires the ceo and he/she runs the company we provide advice and oversight especially on financial and compliance issues overall we represent the investor community
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q: you have a total of four degrees two of which are in business and law why did you choose to study these things a: i did my mba and law degree at night while working during a downtime in the oil industry i think that an mba is an excellent complement to an engineering degree as you move up the management ladder both have come in handy during various points in my career they were good insurance policies! q: do you have any advice for graduating engineers or undergraduate students in general a: the three es – excellence endurance and empowerment be good at your job and solve your bosss problems be resilient and creative in the face of setbacks and help those around you especially those who come behind you q: as someone whos climbed every rung of the corporate ladder what are some things that people have done earned accreditation for or developed within themselves professionally that impressed you a: well as a collector of college degrees im a little biased really though i think that extra degrees are good to have people say ill get a certificate in x but the problem with certificates is that they arent universally recognized and quality can vary widely everyone knows what a masters degree or an mba is i think if you can go through the trouble get a degree that you can take with you wherever you go there are so many options now with online and executive programs from quality universities and most large employers will pay for most of the degree also i would say its important to keep learning because technology is constantly changing for engineers i recommend learning more about data science as an alternative to an mba and there are many universities offering quality data science/data analytics ms programs i have been very involved in spe for 40 years -- since i was a student at texas a&m professional organizations like spe are a great way to stay in the know about current trends and upcoming tech breakthroughs also it extends your network beyond your own employer its easy to stay in your bubble at a big corporation keeping my antennae up and getting out of my office once a week was a goal i had and it greatly helped my professional development
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q: what else are you up to these days a: i retired from chevron a little more than a year ago and joined my first corporate board the next day board work is periodic with a busy month followed by two months of mostly quiet giving me time to do things i wasnt able to do while working full time and managing a large team my husband dave and i are taking some longer fun trips we just returned from a trip to the utah national parks and the grand canyon and will go to iceland and china later this year and have two trips planned for 2020 with the traveling aggies i am also on some nonprofit boards as well i am a certified instructor for both scuba and yoga so much of my time is spent pursuing those things also i enjoy cooking and playing pickleball or very bad golf q: how often are you on campus and do you enjoy coming back a: we have homes in houston and at traditions so we stay pretty involved with campus events i am on campus often for sporting events and usually have the honor to speak for different classes or organizations once or twice a year we are season ticket holders for football and both mens and womens basketball still waiting on those baseball tickets q: you have a lot of accomplishments what are you most proud of a: i was just thinking about this and i think its being spe president its a big deal in our world and ive been involved with spe my whole career ever since i was a student officer at texas a&m as its international president i was able to travel to 40 countries and speak to about 15 000 people it was a lot of work and made me perpetually jetlagged for two years but how many people can say theyve been to kazakhstan or kalimantan its something that ill look back on in my 80s and think yep that was a highlight
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the texas a&m college of engineering is proud of our former students such as janeen judah who demonstrate aggie core values like leadership and are committed to empowering young engineers to fulfill their potential if you know an aggie who is celebrating an accomplishment and would like them to be recognized by the college please contact the office of alumni relations
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rishita das and komal kumari two doctoral students from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university have been named 2019 amelia earhart fellows by the zonta international foundation the $10 000 fellowship is awarded annually to up to 30 women pursuing doctoral degrees in aerospace-applied sciences or aerospace-applied engineering das is pursuing research in turbulence under the supervision of dr sharath girimaji while kumari is focused on research in turbulence and advanced computations under dr diego donzis both hold bachelor of technology and master of technology degrees in aerospace engineering from the indian institute of technology kharagpur india das research focuses on understanding velocity gradients and local flow topology of incompressible turbulent flows she is studying the distribution and time evolution of small-scale turbulent structures in an isotropic turbulent flow and the occurrence of extreme events in these structures her research will help understand the physical processes that govern turbulent flow phenomena like mixing and fluid-element deformation finally she aims at developing a physics-based stochastic model for velocity gradient dynamics to capture small-scale turbulence statistics this would provide a physical understanding of complex turbulent flows of interest for which simulation of the entire turbulent flow field is prohibitively expensive the model will be specifically useful in developing efficient design and enhancing controlling capabilities of aerospace fluid systems where proper understanding is lacking due to computational limitations i am most honored and grateful to the zonta international foundation for awarding me the amelia earhart fellowship said das who aspires to develop expertise in the wide-ranging physics underlying turbulence and further enhance the simulation capabilities for turbulence in engineering flows the prime focus of kumaris research is the development analysis and implementation of a novel asynchronous and optimal mathematical framework that will effectively leverage the largest computational resources this asynchronous paradigm significantly improves the scalability of numerical solvers and facilitates the use of billions of processors or more an impossible task for virtually all current solvers she will use this framework for simulations of turbulent flows at unprecedented levels of physical realism and accelerate the development and understanding of the physics of turbulence at scales and conditions unachievable on current supercomputers these new insights will help improve the turbulence models used for industrial scale simulations and facilitate the design of more efficient airplanes rockets and jet-engines being selected as an amelia earhart fellow is an honor that i'll forever treasure said kulmari it reminds me of how much i have learned and grown during my time here at texas a&m and for this i am truly grateful to my advisor dr donzis for his support guidance and all his pep talks this award is a recognition of the hard work and effort that we put in it is a boost to my confidence and encourages me to continue doing what i love to the best of my abilities and contribute to the advancement of my field the prestigious fellowship established in 1938 in honor of famed pilot amelia earhart aims to carry out zontas mission that women have access to all resources and are represented in decision-making positions on an equal basis with men
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imagine going out to the garage jumping into your flying vehicle and heading off to work sounds a little like the jetsons right now saturday morning cartoons are closer to reality thanks to the gofly prize competition sponsored by boeing to make human flight a reality and a team from texas a&m university has accepted the challenge gofly issued a $2 million three-phase challenge in 2017 to inventors to design and build a safe ultra-quiet and easy-to-fly personal flying vehicle for anyone anywhere after winning phase i for their written report team harmony from texas a&m stepped up their game and built a beautifully-flying third-scale prototype named aria to win phase ii and the prize of $50 000 now the team sets their sights on building a full-scale technology demonstrator for the phase iii final fly-off in 2020 the team led by dr moble benedict assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering along with eight texas a&m aerospace engineering graduate students and three researchers from nasa and the university of maryland is the only united states university team out of the five phase ii winners to date more than 600 teams from 110 countries have competed in the gofly challenge
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"winning both phases i and ii of the gofly prize especially with such fierce competition has brought lot of excitement and confidence to the team we hope to keep this momentum going and win the $1 million grand prize in phase iii " said benedict the goal of the gofly prize is to foster the development of a near-vertical-takeoff-and-landing personal flying device quieter than 87 decibels and capable of flying 20 miles while carrying a single person imagine a vehicle someone could pull out of their garage and take off in to go to work without even blowing the trash can into the street gofly is unique because we're working on a problem that people have been dreaming of solving for a long time said team member carl runco everyone wants to fly to work and we are going to make that possible
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in phase i the team spent a semester brainstorming different vehicle configurations before developing a unique personal air vehicle concept that simulations showed made less noise at 20 yards than a hair dryer next to your ear they built a 1/8 scale prototype to demonstrate their vehicle design in phase ii the team spent another semester refining and building a 1/3 scale prototype to successfully verify their full-scale aerodynamic and acoustic predictions through hundreds of hours of lab testing including wind tunnel tests of their novel rotor system the team then partnered with faa-licensed unmanned air systems (uas) pilot scott mcharg to conduct more than 50 flight tests of the prototype and demonstrate vertical takeoff followed by steady flight aborted landings and vertical landings all required maneuvers for phase ii in addition to the required maneuvers and the noise limitations the final vehicle can be no larger than 8 1/2 feet capable of carrying a payload of 200 pounds and must travel at a speed of at least 30 knots the team believes the full-scale rendition of aria will meet these requirements and win phase iii despite the countless hours the team has put in to developing aria they have never lost their positive energy or focus on the end goal although the hours have been long and exhausting i'm very excited about gofly said team member farid saemi i would not have enjoyed such a hands-on opportunity to develop a new field of aviation even if i had gone straight to industry as a recent graduate in addition to the long hours the team still faces many challenges to bring their project to fruition including raising the necessary funds to finish building the project and getting it commercialized after completion the texas a&m engineering experiment stations office of commercialization and entrepreneurship is helping the team lay the groundwork to commercialize and develop the teams promising concept into a viable product after the gofly competition another hurdle will be to get federal aviation administration (faa) approval to fly the full-size vehicle the team is responsible for ensuring their device is allowed to fly and is not in conflict with any faa or other regulations both during flight testing and at the final fly-off the team is working with mcharg and the lone star uas center of excellence at texas a&m-corpus christi to secure flight test authorization from the faa just as in the first two phases anyone can compete in phase iii teams dont have to have a win in a previous phase to compete in the final fly-off but participation will be by invitation only the fly-off which will be in early 2020 will consist of two phases: tech inspection and flight demonstration with scored parameters for size noise and speed team harmony is ready for these challenges the team members from texas a&m include benedict runco saemi atanu halder david coleman bochan lee hunter denton and vishaal subramanian
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dr jn reddy is the latest recipient of the timoshenko medal a prestigious honor awarded by the applied mechanics division of the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) the award recognizes the distinguished contributions of its honorees in the field of applied mechanics reddy is receiving the award for lifetime contributions to research and education in applied mechanics through the authorship of creative and highly cited papers on variational principles refined theories of plates and shells computational methods and nonlocal theories which have impacted generations of engineers reddy oscar s wyatt jr chair professor university distinguished professor and regents professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university will accept the award on nov 12 during the 2019 international mechanical engineering congress & exposition in salt lake city utah asme founded the award in 1957 in honor of world-renowned applied mechanics authority stephen p timoshenko and his contributions as both an author and teacher
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infrastructure is the backbone of society to better understand each segment of it – such as energy water telecommunications and transportation – engineers and governments must understand all of it like a tangled web each sector is heavily influenced and affected by changes in others for example say we need energy resources to produce water infrastructure but we also need water infrastructure to produce energy they are both dependent on each other and you cant have one without the other so if you benefit the water sector you also benefit the energy sector said venancio mendez levy a senior in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering at texas a&m university as part of the texas a&m grand challenge scholars program (gcsp) mendez levy is developing a way to quantify and model the interconnectivity of infrastructure systems in order to map and analyze the intricate relationships between each in doing so he is creating an integral tool for state and national entities to use to decide how best to invest in infrastructure and improve infrastructural resilience to natural disasters such as wildfires and hurricanes mendez levy conducted this research under the guidance of alireza talebpour an assistant professor in the department at the end of the day countries that have better infrastructure systems have better economies and commercial frontiers he said so we are trying to generate a computational model that any state organization can use to run the numbers to decide whether to invest in this sector rather than another one to achieve the most overall benefit this is particularly critical for budgeting like a company preparing for their fiscal year and dividing up available funding across their key departments governing bodies have to carefully plan how to use their limited resources to fund their infrastructure whether it is a city governance wanting to fix roads or national legislation to support a new method of clean energy finding the best budgeting strategy is as imperative as it is difficult mendez levys computational model would give such entities a visualization of how their investments directly affect each sector of infrastructure and those related to it this would not only give authorities a better understanding of how state and national infrastructure systems work together but also provide them with unbiased data about their funding options additionally a better understanding of infrastructure systems and how they are interconnected could lead to a new way to improve infrastructural resilience to natural disasters but interconnectivity is a double-edged sword when one sector benefits others are also inadvertently boosted however it also means that when one sector is damaged by a natural disaster it damages all other related sectors as well as mendez levy explained based on data pulled from past natural disasters his model and research have the potential to identify what sector is being most negatively affected and disconnect it from the rest of the infrastructure network until post-catastrophe by mapping the system and highlighting where damaged segments can be shut down temporarily his research could therefore save a government money and resources that could be allocated to another branch of infrastructure that would balance and bolster those in peril this shows how important programs such as the texas a&m gcsp are undergraduate research at texas a&m allows students to expand their frontiers and knowledge so that they can answer problems the world is dealing with right now he said i am doing a little bit and trying to give what i can by investing in the research i am investing in myself
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the national science foundation (nsf) recently awarded the texas a&m university system louis stokes stem pathways and research alliance (lsamp) $4 million to implement programmatic initiatives to increase engagement and enhance the success of underrepresented minority students in stem and conduct research to explore the impact of research mentoring grit and persistence on underrepresented minority student success in stem according to dr angela duckworth grit is the ability to persist and persevere because of your motivation for a long-term goal duckworth is the christopher h browne distinguished professor of psychology at the university of pennsylvania where she studies grit and self-control its important to research what leads to student success so we can transform engineering education and the stem career landscape and allocate resources to support the transformation said dr karen butler-purry principal investigator (pi) for the project professor of electrical and computer engineering and associate provost for graduate and professional studies at texas a&m university lsamp is comprised of original members texas a&m prairie view a&m university and texas a&m university-corpus christi plus a new member texas a&m international university the team is including two new texas a&m researchers: dr reuben may presidential professor of sociology and dr christine stanley professor of higher education and co-pi on the grant she is an expert in the area of diversity and social justice in higher education faculty development and college teaching i am excited to be involved in the louis stokes alliance for minority participation grant with my colleagues in the college of engineering this nsf-sponsored grant has the potential to impact recruitment and retention of current and future students in stem " stanley said
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programmatic initiatives will include a robust academic year undergraduate research program international research experiences and a multipronged mentoring strategy for their high-impact research abroad experience students will be visiting the yucatán and belize i am motivated to provide these different types of experiences to students because it broadens their image of themselves as a stem scholar said butler-purry having a high-impact experience where an undergraduate can apply their skills in a realistic setting such as in a laboratory or on a study abroad trip greatly impacts their matriculation to graduate school because they can see themselves there and have an idea of what they would be doing
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the group will analyze mentoring relationships between faculty and students to assess the growth of grit after they gather the data they hope to be able to train educators on how to best mentor students to foster success mentorship is about finding out what that person really aspires for and helping them decode what they need to do to meet their own goals said dr karan watson the pi for the project from 1993-2017 and regents professor for the college of engineering sometimes people think theyre mentoring when really theyre advising a student on how to be like them or how to get over one hurdle grit will take a student through hard times to success said watson often its not the student with the highest gpa that will succeed in life but the student with the most motivation work ethic and resilience we want our students to know how they're going to contribute their uniqueness to society through their field part of their research analyzes the effect undergraduate research and mentors have on grit when students engage in research they see that a difference can be made in their field and it can spark a long-term goal that transcends simply completing another semester said watson
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the project builds on a 26-year track record of success by texas a&m university system lsamp working with lsamp schools from across the nation allows texas a&m to have a broader perspective on issues and collaborate on concrete solutions that will help students thrive their combined findings led to the discovery that social capital is key to the success of individuals social capital is about ensuring support systems are in place to make somebody feel like they are welcome like they belong and their success is important to the institution although the idea of social capital existed even before the 90s lsamp studies have contributed to increased support for first-generation students and the creation of living learning communities our evidence-based research has led to many best practices for universities said butler-purry we now know that undergraduate research develops a sense of self efficacy for students that can inspire them to pursue graduate studies once the study is complete a broad dissemination of results will inform evidence-based practices in the design and implementation of strong mentoring of underrepresented minorities in undergraduate research experiences from the student perspective when we dont support underrepresented minority students in stem they are missing out on the opportunity to achieve at their fullest capability said butler-purry its also important for other students to be able to experience and learn in a diverse environment for their long-term success plus its just the right thing to do we have to make sure potential engineers arent accidentally or systemically cut out from the field said watson greater diversity in the workforce means a greater diversity of ideas people who come from different backgrounds will look at a problem differently leading to better engineering solutions for the world
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if theres one thing dr sonia garcia wants you to know its this underrepresented minority students thrive when given the opportunity and resources to succeed as senior director of the access and inclusion program in the college of engineering at texas a&m university garcia works tirelessly to make sure that underrepresented minority engineering students have a community and a place to grow academically and individually her efforts were recently recognized by the department of multicultural services at the annual accountability climate and equity awards ceremony where she was given the diversity service staff award garcias story is similar to that of many of the students she helps daily born in the dominican republic and later moving to puerto rico and finally the mainland united states she understands what it feels like to be different than others around you she also understands how integral the people who came before her were to her own success in so many ways my career in higher education is my way of paying it forward she said
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finding her purpose a first-generation college student garcia admits that she was apprehensive when she first arrived at the university of massachusetts in 1990 but she leaned in and listened to the advice of those around her and she carved out her own path there were advisors faculty members and deans who encouraged her and helped her see her own potential one such opportunity was a summer program designed to help underrepresented minorities gain admission to graduate school she had just completed bachelor of science degrees in political science international relations and french when she earned a fellowship at the university of rhode island in the student affairs masters program it wasnt something she initially planned to pursue but a mentor encouraged her and helped her realize that this was something she could really excel at after graduating she worked at michigan state university as an advisor it was a difficult job but it ignited her passion for helping students even more after a couple years working with minority students in high-risk situations i realized how difficult it was for them she said i really wanted to know more about this so i decided to go for a phd garcias dissertation was on the ethnic identity development of latina women in college something with which she was acutely familiar i saw a lot of minority students struggle she said that struggle plays a role in how well students do academically and that struggle became the driving force behind her passion to create a space for minority students to feel empowered
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establishing access and inclusion in 2014 garcia was hired to lead a brand-new initiative at the college of engineering at texas a&m the access and inclusion program the program provides opportunities for high school students to visit the college and learn about engineering it also helps facilitate a transitional program for first-generation college students called the engineering summer bridge program another component is a high-impact professional development course to help undergraduate students sharpen their soft skills that will help them become successful outside the classroom garcia who once served as a peer mentor herself developed a peer mentor program so that undergraduates have access to knowledgeable upperclassmen she also worked with halliburton engineering global programs to create an opportunity for first-generation students to do research and study abroad in mexico when asked why she works so hard for students her answer is simple because she cares students give me life and energy she said they give me motivation to go on and continue helping them to show them all the potential that they have garcias office is located in the equity and inclusion suite inside the zachry engineering education complex the women in engineering program is also housed in the suite and the two programs often collaborate on events and initiatives its not just saying ‘we care about you we actually do care she said her hard work has paid off the college of engineering has seen an increase in the enrollment and retention of hispanic and african-american students in the last couple of years creating opportunities for these populations means creating opportunity for the future she said once we open the access and include minorities in innovation and education thats when were going to make a difference in society garcia said it isnt just about paying it forward its about being in a position where youre meeting with a student who feels they have no opportunities and then you show them that they do she said its just an amazing feeling this is about making a permanent contribution to these students
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engineering students put their pitching skills to the test during aggie pitch 2019 except they werent playing ball the mcferrin center for entrepreneurship hosted its second annual aggie pitch this year aggie pitch is open to all currently enrolled students and seeks to identify the best student business pitch at texas a&m ten student teams were selected as finalists to compete for $50 000 in prize money the finalist team members represented six colleges and over 15 majors each group was allotted 10 minutes to give a pitch on their business and field questions from a panel of expert judges two engineering teams placed in the top five team polylabs made up of biomedical engineering students won third place for their novel polybubble technology which serves as a protective layer surrounding life-saving vaccines exposed to extreme temperatures during transport to developing countries cutting the costs associated with constant refrigeration
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junior jacob good said the team has been working to develop the idea under assistant professor dr corey bishop now that the team had a successful proof-of-concept pitching their idea and raising awareness was the next step competing in aggie pitch helped us understand how to bridge the knowledge gap between engineers such as ourselves and people in business good said we learned how to get away from the science and connect with the judges so they would believe in our idea the same way we do biomedical engineering graduate student shree arun kumar said the team wanted to participate in the competition to fine tune their business model and seek funding to commercialize the product aggie pitch encouraged us to critically think about initial investment and revenue strategies that will lead to the successful deployment of our polybubbles kumar said winning third place in this competition provided us with financial resources to kickstart our commercialization effort
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team lazarus which included mechanical engineering senior elise hackney chemical engineering senior ben omonira and biomedical engineering senior seth reine placed fourth in the competition the teams project works to develop a form of ammunition that would provide neutralization power of a lethal round while preserving life through hemostatic material omonira said aggie pitch exceeded the teams expectations for helping them hone their pitching skills and gain more feedback aggie pitch shed light on the things we can do to answer questions raised in the minds of an investor omonira saidmost importantly we were given feedback that set us up for an opportunity to show real investment potential moving forward and we had a great opportunity to show off our teams hard work other engineering students were in the top 10 finalists for the challenge alex ramponi computer engineering senior worked with two veterinary medicine students on vetchip a way to track a pets complete medical history for easier access by veterinarians when it matters most he said he learned about the project from an online post when i heard their idea i thought it was really cool since i personally have two dogs one of which has a handful of medical issues ramponi said when they explained the idea to me and how it could really change how the vet industry works i was fascinated since i could easily see it not only helping my dogs but other dogs and vets nationwide ramponi said the aggie pitch process and the vetchip project helped him expand his knowledge beyond software and coding to include business skills other finalists included electrical and computer engineering student graduate student alfredo costilla-reyes and team interna which included industrial engineering seniors christian aycinena and francisco donoso interdisciplinary engineering senior luke oaks and general engineering sophomore nathan reddy
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a successful life by definition includes service to others george hw bush nuclear policy and a shared commitment to serve tie together the department of nuclear engineering and the bush school of government and public service at texas a&m university creating cross-disciplinary interactions that connect the opposite sides of campus the classes seminars and organization relationships are advantageous to both students and washington
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good nuclear policy is essential for maintaining peace and making sure countries have a diverse energy portfolio said dr sunil chirayath associate professor and director of the center for nuclear security science and policy initiatives (nsspi) nsspi is a multidisciplinary organization at texas a&m the first us academic institution focused on technical graduate education research and service related to the safeguarding of nuclear materials and the reduction of nuclear threats in 2006 nsspi was formed as a joint center between texas a&m and the texas a&m engineering experiment station
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nsspi combines the talent of internationally recognized researchers from the uss largest nuclear engineering department with renowned policy expertise from the bush school the team brings unique capabilities to face complex nuclear threats and proliferation challenges involving both policy and technology nsspi students participate in foreign field experiences present their research results in national and international forums and have premier internship opportunities at national laboratories said chirayath our students recently participated in the domestic nuclear facilities experience where they visited los alamos national laboratory sandia national laboratory urenco and the waste isolation pilot plant next month our students will be touring facilities in europe focused on nonproliferation
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dr evans kitcher an assistant research engineer for nsspi teaches nuclear technology for policy makers a class that informs bush school students studying international affairs with an interest in nuclear security or energy on the technical aspects of nuclear engineering effective policies achieve goals said kitcher in turn professors from the bush school also teach classes for both nuclear engineering and government graduate students having a strong technical background in nuclear engineering and supplementing it with lectures and seminars from policy experts in the bush school enhances your worldview said athena sagadevan a nuclear engineering doctoral student i enjoyed the international security class i took with dr william mayborn at the bush school we analyzed previous wars that have happened around the world and how they influence policies today nuclear policy in the us is governed by its history so knowing the past is essential
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policies tend to allow countries to have guidelines on how they act with one another said sagadevan from an energy perspective policy allows you to make sure that a certain quota of your energy comes from nuclear meaning that it's clean for example pollution is a significant challenge in china currently mainland china has about 45 nuclear power reactors in operation roughly 15 under construction and more about to start their policies are helping make them a more green country i was really encouraged to see the interaction between the nuclear engineering students and the bush school students as the former would often help us understand the complexity of nuclear weapons production and the enormous costs involved in a weapons program said dr william mayborn a visiting assistant professor to the bush school sagadevan completed an internship at oak ridge national laboratory where she used a code developed at texas a&m to provide a score for reactors indicating how much they would need to be monitored this score can communicate the probability of misuse of a reactor to a policy maker she said
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the institute of nuclear materials management (inmm) is a nonprofit technical organization dedicated to the safe secure and effective stewardship of nuclear materials and related technologies inmm unites engineers technicians managers policymakers analysts commercial vendors educators and students across the globe texas a&m was the first university to start a student chapter as a student organization inmm connects texas a&m students to professionals from all over the world if youre interested in international relations making a concrete impact in the world and reducing nuclear weapons through nonproliferation join inmm this fall said mario mendoza a senior nuclear engineering student and the 2018-19 texas a&m chapter president of inmm mendoza had the opportunity to visit the national inmm conference which included ambassadors and representatives from the united nations
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benefits for a student include meetings every other week with food and events that put you in contact with people from industry academia and national labs said sagadevan the 2018-19 texas a&m chapter vice president at texas a&m inmm is a great platform to connect with undergraduate students graduate students students from the bush school and our organization advisors every year there is an inmm liaison to connect the department of nuclear engineering and the bush school in 2018 audrey hopkins an international affairs graduate student served as the liaison in april inmm hosted an advanced reactor safeguards workshop the workshop gathered experts in safeguards and advanced reactor design from around the world and texas a&m students to discuss current and future safeguards implementations for these new reactors new challenges arise with the development of new reactor types so current safeguards in place must be modified or new methods must be created to keep the world secure
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students from around the state of texas and the world gathered on the campus of texas a&m university this summer for the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) tryengineering summer institute hosted by the department of electrical and computer engineering the camp is structured with two two-week camp sessions that allow students to experience life on a college campus and see what electrical and computer engineering and texas a&m engineering have to offer the camps focus on stem-related coursework and provide opportunities to experience hands-on design challenges and projects learn firsthand from experts in the field form friendships with other students and get a behind-the-scenes look at innovative engineering environments such as the zachry engineering education complex tryengineering summer institute students not only enjoy the impressive facilities on campus they are also near the heart of the united states space program and past students have enjoyed visits to nasas johnson space center fifty-two students attended both sessions hosted at texas a&m this summer one camper said "i enjoyed the summer institute because it gave me a great experience and i enjoyed the lessons and activities provided throughout my time at camp it showed how college life was and really got me brainstorming about what i would like to do in the future" it has been wonderful having the ieee tryengineering summer institute on campus this summer seeing the campers excitement and interest in working on completing projects and learning engineering concepts makes us excited for the future and for what these young people will contribute to the engineering community said windy lala electrical and computer engineering undergraduate advisor several ieee professionals attended the speaker and panel sessions in addition to current nasa engineers this is the second summer that the department of electrical and computer engineering has hosted tryengineering the university of california riverside hosts the california camp and vaughn college of aeronautics and technology hosts the new york camp the goal of the tryengineering summer institute is to spark enthusiasm in engineering and technology in the next generation of problem solvers and difference makers and position these innovators for long-term success in academics and in life tryengineering summer institute is a partnership between ieee and branded camp services
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many students come to texas a&m university without knowing what their future career will be dr brian craig can relate craig wanted to pursue a program that involved engineering yet was human-centered not solely focusing on math and design he found it at texas a&m receiving bachelors degrees in bioengineering (1990) and industrial engineering (1992) a masters degree in industrial engineering and a phd in interdisciplinary engineering while he may not have known what to study as a freshman craig has achieved great things over his career including recently becoming the dean of the college of engineering at lamar university craigs success has been built on hard work responsibility and practicing the aggie core values in his life and career before the fall semester begins craig spoke with us about how he joined the industrial engineering program and how texas a&m impacted his life
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q why did you choose to attend texas a&m a i was in the first generation of aggies in my family preceded by my older brother david i had opportunities to visit aggieland and attend fightin texas aggie football games while i was in high school those visits along with the core values made the choice of which university to attend a simple one for me i did not apply anywhere else q why did you choose your majors a as is the case for many entering freshmen i didnt have a clear idea of what i wanted to study computer science was my initial selection due to the obvious trajectory of computer applications and technology but i switched to bioengineering after my freshman year knowing i wanted to pursue a combination of something engineering yet human-related when i graduated with my bachelors degree in bioengineering i wanted to go to grad school but the job market was down i remained in school and finished my degree in industrial engineering in 1992 it was around that time that i took a course in human factors engineering a field that at the time i did not even know existed as they say the rest is history after almost six years and two degrees i had finally found something that involved engineering yet was human-related afterward i earned a masters degree in industrial engineering and phd in interdisciplinary engineering specializing in human factors engineering ergonomics and safety most of these opportunities i owe to my graduate faculty particularly my masters and phd advisor dr jerome (jerry) congleton professor and director of the national science foundation industry/university cooperative research center in ergonomics and director emeritus of the texas a&m ergonomics center
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q how has being an aggie engineer helped you in your career a the world-class education you receive by earning an engineering degree from texas a&m is immediately recognized and respected whether i am traveling or walking into a meeting for the first time i have an instant network i simply scan the meeting room or as i am waiting on a flight at the airport for aggie rings and more often than not i will see fellow aggies proudly wearing them particularly early in my career the engineering education that i earned from texas a&m provided an increased sense of confidence however even as respected as an engineering degree from texas a&m is my level of success would not have been possible without my graduate school faculty and a lot of hard work q what advice would you give to current engineering students a as my father told my brother and me growing up find something you love and hopefully you can also get paid to do it this is simple yet profound considering the impact your chosen career will have on your overall quality of life and family a career that you love allows you to wake up each morning and look forward to working believing in something greater than yourself can also lead to a worthwhile and fulfilling career texas a&m fosters an environment of collaboration and responsibility your classmates expect you to uphold a certain set of values and those values are important to remember and integrate into your life after you graduate and move into your career as you move up in your career you need to strive for a balance in life work hard but balance that with fun
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students also shouldnt lose sight of the fact that they are responsible for their future level of success and shouldnt be afraid to pursue their dreams accept the difficult assignments in college and in your career when you work you should always have a sense of urgency and be driven so you never have people waiting on you balancing this drive with patience a skill that i still struggle with at times and having respect for your coworkers regardless of their title or rank will allow you to succeed in your school work and future career dont forget that faculty can be one of your best assets now and into the future ask one or more of them to be your mentor try to avoid student debt as much as possible a lesson that i learned the hard way as i am in my 19th year of repaying my student loans always remember that you really can change the world in some meaningful way with the education that you are currently working on the hard work and challenges that come with earning an engineering degree from texas a&m really are worth it be persistent
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texas a&m universitys engineering entrepreneurship program (eep) has created the concept creation and commercialization (c3) certificate program that allows both undergraduate and graduate students to gain insight into industry and sharpen their entrepreneurial skills this 13-hour credit program includes insight into startup business practices the chance for students to share their ideas with industry as well as become inspired by former texas a&m engineering students who have successfully commercialized their own products students can uncover what customers are looking for and in turn design a product that customers value rodney boehm director of engineering entrepreneurship started designing this certificate program in 2016 his goal was to set students apart from their peers by instilling in them an entrepreneurial mindset this is what engineers do boehm said they have a concept they create the solution and then they commercialize it senior ben omonira said he is currently pursuing this certificate with the intention of becoming an individual with initiative who can think innovatively this opportunity met his goals for self-growth my experience with the c3 program has been insightful and ive learned to make assumptions and test them relentlessly omonira said working as a professor of practice in the engineering entrepreneurship program james donnell has seen numerous projects emerge from this certificate program from a pacifier with a built-in hygrometer for the early detection of dehydration in infants to a device that more effectively detects feline diabetes the ideas are all over the spectrum donnell said through the certificate program omonira came up with lazarus a project developing specialty ammunition that neutralizes threats while preserving life his project is centered around helping law enforcement disable threats with a lower chance of death from excessive bleeding in its sole aim to diversify students experiences in industry the certificate program offers opportunities for them to branch out and make connections that they otherwise could not have made roland block associate director of engineering and experiential education with the career center said he loves this program because it goes beyond basic instruction and gives students practical knowledge on how to take the next step "so many students want to go into design but they dont necessarily have a good understanding of what it takes to design develop and produce a product and thats what this certificate so nicely offers " block said this is just the very beginning of this program and im excited for what is to come boehm said learn more about the c3certificate program here
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a team of researchers from the texas a&m energy institute and the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering led by dr mahmoud el-halwagi are developing novel technologies and integrated systems that could dramatically reduce the amount of water needed in the natural gas extraction process
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researchers from the texas a&m energy institute and the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering are leading a major initiative to reduce the amount of water needed in the natural gas extraction process and to treat wastewater so that it is safe for reuse since the early 2000s hydraulic fracturing has been the main natural gas extraction process in the united states the effectiveness of the process and the access to major reserves have led to substantial economic growth through the use of shale gas in generating electricity and in producing a wide variety of value-added chemicals while hydraulic fracturing is extremely effective the process requires large amounts of water which typically ranges from two to seven million gallons per well after this water is used in the extraction process it returns to the surface as wastewater containing naturally occurring contaminants like radium salts metals and various chemicals used in the process this wastewater is usually shipped offsite for treatment or injected into a deep well for disposal the potential impact on industry and everyday life is tremendous the project will enhance the quality of life for communities adjacent to shale gas production will provide a strategic roadmap for the cost-effective management of shale gas wastewater and will help gas producers operate in more sustainable manner said dr mahmoud el-halwagi el-halwagi is professor holder of the bryan research and engineering chair in chemical engineering and managing director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations gas and fuels research center (gfrc) is the principle investigator (pi) of a department of energy (doe) research project entitled deploying intensified automated mobile operable and novel designs (diamond) for treating shale gas wastewater focused on developing integrated design and operating approaches for modular systems that can be deployed in the treatment of hydraulic fracturing wastewater the team of texas a&m researchers is collaborating on this $53 million project with partners from the university of pittsburgh the university of texas at austin and us clean water technology the project is aimed at developing novel technologies and integrated systems that will lead to a paradigm shift in managing shale gas wastewater reducing cost conserving natural resources and enhancing environmental impact said el-halwagi while treatment of wastewater is currently used it is often prohibitively expensive and rarely used in addition the characteristics of the wastewater vary tremendously from one natural gas well to another however according to dr joseph sang-ii kwon assistant professor in the chemical engineering department and co-pi on the project the variable nature of each well presents a unique opportunity to utilize modular systems the modular nature of the proposed systems will take care of well-to-well variability such as geological conditions regional regulations proximity and capacity of treatment facilities etc kwon said first the team will examine and model the dynamic characteristics of the wastewater and develop computer-aided tools to streamline the modeling process once the wastewater is characterized the team will assess all of the conventional wastewater treatment options – pretreating the water reverse osmosis flotation among others – and carry out experimental testing and prototyping with novel modular technologies – membrane distillation counter-flow ro systems novel ionic liquids with a polymeric membrane contactor and electro-magnetic fields this experimentation and testing will determine the most effective approach to treating the different characteristics of wastewater from well to well the environmental impact of different approaches will be considered according to dr debalina sengupta associate director of the gfrc the life cycle of the options is critical for sustainability of the chosen options when technologies are considered we seldom are able to take account of all the sustainability aspects that make it truly feasible the diamond project will consider the true sustainability of the technology options and will provide the platform for predicting and testing future options the doe grant is being administered through the rapid advancement in process intensification deployment (rapid) institute led by the american institute of chemical engineers the texas a&m energy institute is leading the modeling and simulation efforts for the institute
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the texas a&m university college of engineering was named recipient of the cigre outstanding collective member award which previously had only been won by companies in industry cigre is an organization of 90 countries promoting electric power technology worldwide the outstanding collective member award is given for outstanding leadership and continuing managerial technical and financial support of the activities of the united states national committee (usnc) and cigre over an extended period of time the award was presented at the annual luncheon meeting of the cigre usnc which was held at the hilton in atlanta on aug 6 it is a distinct honor for texas a&m engineering to be the first university to be named by cigre to this award " said dr b don russell engineering research chair professor regents professor and tees eminent professor at texas a&m and usnc vice president "this is due to the long-standing relationship where texas a&m hosts the us secretariat for cigre the texas a&m college of engineering is one of the largest engineering colleges in the country with more than 20 000 engineering students and nearly 700 faculty including world-renowned scholars members of the national academies of engineering science and medicine and industry experts the college is consistently ranked among the top 10 public engineering programs in the country and ranks third in the nation in research expenditures texas a&m is first in the nation for most graduates serving as ceos of fortune 500 companies has had the largest female incoming freshman engineering class for the past two years and is among the top universities in the number of national merit scholars
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senior madeline loftin has taken her college education to the next level by starting a business developing her entrepreneurial skills alongside her engineering ones growing up loftin said she wanted to be a doctor but didnt feel medical school was a good fit when she realized biomedical engineering combined science and engineering she immediately made it her first choice in her first year loftin was a member of the engineering academies which meant for her freshman year she took her math and science classes at blinn college and general engineering courses at texas a&m when i first started i was so upset because it felt like i wasnt really an a&m student but i was wrong youre still part of the school loftin said once i got into it it really helped me transition from high school to college with smaller classes at blinn even if youre not an academies student or blinn team i would recommend blinn to anybody who has concerns about their transition for math and science loftin received her bachelor's degree in may 2019 and as part of the fast-track program will receive her masters degree by may 2020 from texas a&m afterward she plans to continue her cardiovascular and pulmonary bypass education to become a perfusionist during open heart surgery your heart cant beat while the surgeon is operating on it so they hook you up to a bypass machine that controls your respiration your blood gases your blood flow and other important vitals that ensure the patient remains stable loftin said theres an expert clinician controlling all of that and thats what id like to do along with school loftin also works for the texas a&m engineering experiment station as the student work for the new ventures competition an annual event aimed at promoting the commercialization of emerging technology becoming a business owner on top of school a job and extracurricular activities loftin has found time to found a business with the help of startup aggieland and a few fellow biomedical engineers the business focuses on regenerative medicine treatments while looking for resources to help the team loftin came across startup aggieland in the mcferrin center for entrepreneurship its been amazing they have so many resources that students can use there are mentors and experts available and its all free loftin said you can tell they care about working with us its been an immense help and really fascinating just to see the connections in industry science math and how they mix with the business loftin is on the materials track in biomedical engineering and two classes that stood out to her in her junior year where response to biomedical devices and drug delivery she said it was interesting to learn about how medical devices and chemicals mix with the body knowledge shes now able to apply to her business advice for students with an idea and looking for ways to get their own business launched loftin offered some advice she said they should not be afraid to put themselves out there of course be smart and research but dont be afraid to ask for help we werent going to sit there and stumble across a business plan on our own we asked around and did research to look for resources loftin said a lot of help so far has been from faculty resources are out there you might get some nos but youll also get a lot of yess
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biomedical engineering draws students from across the country including senior jacob good who had to learn to shift into college life while also moving from his home state of pennsylvania to live in college station good said texas a&m university offered the best opportunity academically and financially with the scholarships he was provided choosing to pursue biomedical engineering however took some time as good was drawn toward two majors in high school engineering and actuarial science both of goods parents are nurses and finding a video about prosthetics pushed him over the edge to study biomedical engineering because he was captivated by the impact the field can have in the world i looked into engineering and i decided that i wanted to impact the world as opposed to just impacting myself good said nothing against actuarial science i just wanted to have meaningful impact in the best way i could which i thought was through engineering goods interests within biomedical engineering have shifted over the years he is now pursuing pharmaceutics and enjoys the drug portion of the food and drug administration (fda) breaking the ice looking back on his time at texas a&m good said his first semester was difficult because he came in knowing no one and most students came in with already established friends refocusing myself on my reasons for coming to college to position myself with a biomedical engineering degree is when i started to find comfort good said good quickly began to meet people through organizations including the bmen ambassadors his junior year i work jobs do research and take a full course load but one of my favorite choices i made was to join bmen ambassadors good said this is where i can share my passion for biomedical engineering and texas a&m with prospective students and faculty he is also a peer teacher for a biomedical engineering coding class he took sophomore year thats something ive really enjoyed doing because its helping people good said i was in their situation last year and succeeded and i wanted to give people the formula to how they can succeed being able to help students work toward four-year graduation is really rewarding good is on the six-year track and expects to graduate with his bachelors degree in spring 2020 followed by his masters of engineering degree in winter 2020 future plans good said his long-term goal is to become part of upper level management in a pharmaceutical company my goal with biomedical engineering is to establish a strong background in the medical field and move up on the business side in the work place eventually going back for my mba good said to gain experience in industry good had a summer internship with phasebio pharmaceuticals a biopharmaceutical company based in pennsylvania there he worked under the companys chief medical officer where he was able to experience a variety of areas in the company i was doing market research bioanalytical statistics things along those lines that i really got to see the whole aspect of a company and in a small company that is really nice good said it was very helpful to see all of the different aspects of biomedical engineering in one place there's doctors there there's people doing research there's market research" advice good encouraged students to recognize that the four years of college will change the rest of their lives for better or worse there are so many opportunities here research access to the incredible faculty the traditions those opportunities are not always captured good said people let them go and think ‘ok i'll just have fun here when texas a&m offers incredible opportunities with research and academics those should be cherished and utilized good said students should stay motivated on using their time to the best of their abilities in the end i believe motivation is really where people succeed or fail people typically do not run out of time in the day they run out of motivation and they drift into being unproductive good said if students can realize that every day is a day when they can impact their future and enjoy the process they will become a lot more successful
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tucked away in a quiet corner on the second floor of the chemistry building at texas a&m university dr abraham clearfield's office is blanketed with research papers old and new personal items naturally mingle with beakers scientific posters and the trove of professional accolades that line the walls the distinguished professor retired in spring 2019 from the department of chemistry after 43 years of service to the university it was a toy chemistry set he received as a child that catalyzed clearfields laser-focused journey to become a chemist he earned both his bachelors and masters degrees in chemistry from temple university with encouragement from his wife ruth clearfield completed his doctoral degree at rutgers university and began his career in crystallography investigating the structure and properties of crystals in 1976 clearfield accepted an opportunity to work at texas a&m with dr frank albert cotton an old classmate from temple university soon after he was able to build a major x-ray diffraction laboratory at texas a&m in 1986 clearfield and a group of like-minded colleagues formed the faculty of materials science and engineering to address a growing interest in materials research which served as the seed first for the interdisciplinary graduate program in materials science and engineering and then the department
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i told them that youre making a big mistake if you dont have a materials science program at texas a&m because its the future said clearfield and apparently some people heard that and they were willing to start in a small way the university secured a grant from the national science foundation (nsf) and under the guidance of clearfield renovated parts of doherty hall and the chemistry building to support the new materials science and engineering activities additional nsf funding in 1994 made possible the purchase of a scanning tunneling microscope susceptometer-magnetometer and laser ablation system to further enhance the materials research in 2003 an interdisciplinary graduate program in materials science and engineering was approved and in the fall 2004 the first cohort of students entered the program ten years later the department of materials science and engineering was established
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it was the seed that professor clearfield planted at that time and his continuous support that took us where we are today said dr ibrahim karaman chevron professor i and head of the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m in fall 2018 the department enrolled its first undergraduate cohort as the program continues to grow the legacy of dr abraham clearfield is widely apparent materials science is going to grow and how it grows is going to depend on the students we are training now clearfield said from the very beginning clearfield recognized the importance of materials research in the field of engineering with a very clear vision clearfield helped set in motion the very founding of the department though now retired this unwavering commitment to the university and field of materials science and engineering continues to inspire the next generation of engineers in spring 2018 the professor abraham clearfield materials science scholarship was established which honors clearfield for his role in starting materials science and engineering education and research efforts at texas a&m the scholarship supports outstanding undergraduate and graduate students pursuing a doctoral degree in the department of materials science and engineering something that is real and going to do something for the people in the program is what i was after said clearfield and i hope to see students that come out of materials science and do some great things this is my contribution to texas a&m
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in addition complimenting his achievements at texas a&m clearfield also served on several boards and committees including: chairman of the synchrotron radiation special interest group (1995-96) secretary and treasurer of us national committee for crystallography (1995-97) vice president and president of the american ceramic society (1998-1999) and chairman of the x-ray powder special interest group (2004)
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a recently discovered geometric shape found in animal skin cells is providing texas a&m university researchers with a bio-inspired methodology for designing a wide array of engineered creations the interdisciplinary project to develop the shapes -- dubbed delaunay lofts by the researchers -- holds potential applications in a range of areas including architectural design additive manufacturing metamaterial design heat transfer air-flow control and education dr vinayak krishnamurthy an assistant professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering is leading the project alongside dr ergun akleman a professor in the departments of visualization and computer science and engineering delaunay lofts are inspired by a geometric shape called a scutoid which enables animal skin cells to be watertight by slotting together to form a unified shape the recently published research by krishnamurthy and akleman explores the theories and algorithms needed to generate the delaunay lofts as well as the geometric and topological principles that allow for the design of a potentially limitless variety of these types of shapes beyond what is known to occur in nature "by simply assembling several of these new interlocking shapes several aesthetically pleasing and physically robust artifacts can be computationally designed and physically manufactured for mechanical structures architectural tilings and educational puzzle purposes " said krishnamurthy akleman said he is particularly excited that the research enables fundamentals on how to better control the geometry of these shapes -- a breakthrough important to both theoretical and practical implementations "we now have a theoretically sound and practically simple methodologyto search for desired shapes " akleman said "this is really useful since almost all engineering applications involve the identification of desired shapes" krishnamurthy said the space-filling properties of the delaunay lofts open up great potential for sturdy designs that look to nature for inspiration and provide a new tool with applications ranging from structural design to a new kind of bio-inspired building block toys for children "most works on interlocking shapes in the past were performed purely by geometric reasoning " krishnamurthy said "ours is the first to systematically apply geometric reasoning to create new classes of engineered products and systems based on biophysical phenomenon to this end our algorithm builds on the intuition for why scutoids occur in skin cells and shows that there many other shapes -- not just scutoids -- that can be constructed using our algorithm" the team is continuing its research to explore the mechanical properties of these shapes and further investigate the physical properties of delaunay lofts and how structures using them might withstand stress torsion and fatigue their work is already making waves in engineering recently krishnamurthys graduate student was awarded the first place at the association of computing machinery (acm) student research competition organized by the acm-siggraph 2019 conference for his work on delaunay lofts siggraph is the premier research event in the area of geometric computing computer graphics animation and computational fabrication and was held in los angeles july 28-aug 1 2019 this research is now poised to compete in the acm student research competition grand finals across all acm conferences in the country
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nasa has a new directive to return humans to the moon by 2024 this directive generates a compelling need for a more comprehensive understanding of the lunar environment we find your rover to be fully acceptable said lee graham senior project engineer within the astromaterials research and exploration science (ares) division of the human exploration and operations mission directorate at nasas johnson space center
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