houck2040/tees huggingface dataset:
the challenges are clear dr senthil gunasekaran said the solutions are waiting to be explored it is critical for distributors to master inventory management in order to take advantage of the advanced analytics opportunities in todays digital transformation landscape gunasekaran and dr pradip krishnadevarajan researchers in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university are offering a solution for business owners to efficiently organize their inventory which is led by three major forces
first is the impact of information management krishnadevarajan said higher efficiency is opening the door to disruptors like online distributors second is a large generation millennials who will use these technologies to restructure supply chains third is an explosion of services in response to product and supply chain services commoditization the heart of distribution is driven by optimizing working capital while maximizing profitability this is known as the service versus cost trade-off managing working capital effectively decides the financial viability of your firm gunasekaran said its very important to understand the role of working capital not only for your existing business model but also for the evolving new models of e-commerce and other digital platforms until now distributors lacked a proven and tested strategy to perform the advanced must-do inventory analytics on this trade-off typically companies rank products based on a single metric or dimension such as sales or profit gunasekaran and krishnadevarajans approach presents a multicriteria approach that incorporates three metrics – stratification forecasting and replenishment the three-step inventory management model has been in existence for a long time krishnadevarajan said our approach presents a more practical applied and holistic approach backed by 33 real-world applications that companies can implement within a few months with minimal investment of both time and money companies also benefit from learning 24 best practices on growth from actual wholesaler distributors and 43 action steps to implement immediately brent burns retired ceo of isc building materials experienced firsthand the benefits of gunasekaran and krishnadevarajans solution through knowledge learned from the inventory management program attended by all our management and key salespersons we have reduced our total inventory levels by over 20 percent burns said their research was funded by several distributors for more than 15 years through their research engagements business initiatives and executive education sessions with the thomas and joan read center for distribution research and education as a result of gunasekaran and krishnadevarajans program companies will have the ability to better determine what product to stock when identify pricing opportunities at the product level reduce stock-outs and increase product availability and improve customer service
the rules of the road are changing algorithms that are used to help predict driver behavior in years past are facing a changing landscape as more and more automated vehicles are on roadways the emergence of these automated vehicles is just one aspect of roadway safety that is covered by dr dominique lords new book safe mobility: challenges methodology and solutions lord a professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university along with co-author dr simon washington a professor of civil engineering at the university of queensland wrote the book which represents a compilation of research from specialists across the world it serves as a guidebook for roadway safety practitioners and researchers in topics ranging from driver behavior transportation networks urban and suburban transportation and safe road design for vulnerable road users such as bike users and pedestrians in addition to being an educational resource the book has other practical implications for researchers and roadway safety practitioners someone in the us or abroad could look at the theories and concepts laid out in this book to help design something within their own country lord said it is not a design manual but it is based on the latest research from a variety of top authors in this field lords personal contribution to the book includes his years of research on highway safety and design specializing in large data sets lord analyzes these large crash data sets with many zero responses or observations where no crash occurred in my portion i provide information on when we should use traditional models as opposed to when we should use new multiparameter models which is something that has not been done before in my area of work this will be very useful when automated vehicles become prevalent on our roadways lord said were working on a proposal that is beyond this book that deals with how to match drivers with the correct models along with automated vehicles the book as a whole hopes to address a variety of safety concerns in road planning guiding practitioners to design roadways for the future that implement the best practices in transportation safety we want to bring people up to date with what the near future will look like in [in transportation safety] and i feel like this work does a good job of giving a strong look at designing safe and sustainable roadways lord said
young and driven both are words that could describe dr cortlan wickliff at 26 years old wickliff is an engineer licensed attorney business owner motivational speaker and author perhaps more important however is his desire to help others and inspire the next generation of thinkers and doers
when wickliff was in third grade he wrote a paper about dr martin luther king jr that motivated him and propelled the trajectory of his life i found out that he got his phd when he was 26 years old and from that moment on i was inspired he said competitive in nature wickliff set out to earn his phd by 25 a feat he accomplished last summer when he received his doctoral degree in interdisciplinary engineering at texas a&m university four days before his 26th birthday to get there wickliff skipped a grade in elementary school and at 15 was admitted into a program at the university of north texas that allowed bright high school students to gain early entrance into the university he eventually transferred to rice university where he earned a degree in bioengineering graduating at 19 as the youngest engineer in the nation from there wickliff went to harvard law school becoming one of the youngest african-american graduates in the history of the school at age 22 the following year he made history again by becoming the youngest barred attorney in the state of texas these days he travels the country speaking to young people about his tools for success all while starting his own business doing legal work and consulting for other business owners he also wrote a book young and driven
while wickliffs mother dr tanya dugat-wickliff is an engineering professor of practice at texas a&m wickliff said his earliest scientific inspiration began in his fathers auto body shop he was a mechanic and would let me play with power tools and take things apart he said later during wickliffs elementary years he would go with his mother to her master of business administration courses wickliff was bright even as a young child and his mothers classmates would allow him to participate in class projects when she began working on her phd at texas a&m wickliff again came to many of her classes and conferences he said he was able to communicate effectively at a very young age partly because the people who surrounded him did not water things down its something we often overlook and dont think is important but when dealing with kids even as early as elementary all the way through high school if you talk to them with a certain level of maturity and expect a lot out of them they tend to rise to your expectations he said wickliff certainly rose to his parents expectations last summer when he graduated from texas a&m with a phd it was his mother who waited at the end of the stage to hood him it had all come full circle making a difference when wickliff was a child his father died of a heart condition at the age of 40 this tragedy inspired wickliff to study bioengineering in the hopes that he could help prevent others from dying of preventable causes at rice wickliff was able to help develop cardiorespiratory monitors for doctors in developing countries there are a lot of people who die every day from easily treatable easily preventable problems he said its just that doctors are overwhelmed trying to manage patient loads in the end his goal is to make health care more accessible and more affordable for people around the world as an attorney he hopes to make it easier for new technology to be available on the market
wickliff said its important to be a trailblazer especially as an african-american engineer people have looked at my skin color and made snap judgments about my intelligence or capabilities he said thats always a challenge to overcome but wickliff said its important to never be afraid of being the first person of color to work at a company dont be afraid to be that trailblazing person he said and make sure that when you do you reach back and you dont be the only person you bring more people with you wickliff said more and more companies recognize the importance of having different cultures represented in their companies and that its importantfor african-american latinx and other minority groups to be interested in science technology engineering and mathematics its a field where you have a lot of job security and a lot of opportunities to provide for yourself and your family and in the end thats what its all about he said i define success as being able to positively impact those around you the most lasting memories are always of those people who made your life better
texas a&m engineerings graduate program was ranked 12th overall nationally and remained seventh among public institutions in the latest us news & world report survey americas best graduate schools 2019 eight departments in the college of engineering were also ranked in the top 10 public universities: aerospace engineering (4) biological and agricultural engineering (3) civil engineering (8) computer engineering (10) industrial and systems engineering (9) mechanical engineering (8) nuclear engineering (2) and petroleum engineering (2) the complete list of individual programs ranked were: aerospace engineering 7 (4 public); biological and agricultural engineering 3 (3); biomedical engineering 38 (19); chemical engineering 21 (12); civil engineering 15 (8); computer engineering 17 (10); computer science 43 (23); electrical engineering 21 (12); industrial and systems engineering 13 (9); materials science and engineering 37 (23); mechanical engineering 16 (8); nuclear engineering 3 (2); and petroleum engineering 2 (2)
in addition to 38 active learning studios for class instruction the zachry engineering education complex (zach) will offer students 30 000 square feet of multidisciplinary hands-on learning laboratory space these learning laboratories will be common lab spaces which are flexible shared spaces that ensure the facility can be utilized efficiently; equipment duplication is minimized; and practice lab space is available more often and to more students these multidisciplinary labs will accommodate more than 50 courses each semester
the labs span three floors in zachry and are grouped into nine focus areas encompassing the shared vision of all 14 departments within the college of engineering the focus areas include: materials fluids high bay large-scale processes controls cyber-physical and transport phenomena on the first floor located at the base of the staircase in the atrium are the materials laboratory the fluids laboratory and the high bay and large-scale processes laboratory
directly above on the second floor are the controls laboratory the cyber-physical laboratory and the transport phenomena laboratory the electrical measurements laboratory the electrical sciences laboratory and the instrumentation laboratory are above the other labs and overlook the central atrium from the third floor
all labs will offer a modern laboratory infrastructure including overhead service carriers (120-volt and 240-volt power data compressed air water and specialty gases) distributed throughout the space movable workbenches and seating allowing easy reconfiguration of the space augmenting such flexible infrastructure are specialty laboratory systems including ro-water sinks chemical vent hoods an rf shielded room a 45-foot tall high bay and a crane each of the nine focus area laboratories will have a set of equipment shared and selected by various engineering departments to accommodate multiple courses in the lab the shared environment is enabled by equipment-specific software scheduling and hardware interlocks engineering students from various disciplines will work side by side within these labs fostering collaboration architecturally the space is designed to be an open environment with glass walls and windows emphasizing the communal nature of the labs the multidisciplinary and shared nature of these labs represent a paradigm shift from the previous laboratory structure at texas a&m and used by other universities in addition to efficient use of space and equipment common labs also provide greater instructor and student access to a larger variety of laboratory equipment increasing experiential learning opportunities the consolidation of undergraduate labs into the zachary building also allows for the repurposing of departmental lab space for department growth and research
most people might think of computer storage like an external hard drive or flash drive as something static that you can leave sitting somewhere indefinitely without issue in reality thats not the case for instance data is stored in flash drives by capturing electrons in cells and over time those electrons can escape for a variety of reasons creating errors in the data or corrupting the data altogether dr anxiao (andrew) jiang associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university said even the ambient room temperature can affect data storage
whether your full-time job is pursuing an education or career it is rewarding to push yourself and seek opportunities for growth outside of your daily routine himank yadav a senior in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has gone above and beyond to gain a well-rounded education in computing which included engaging in extracurricular activities outside of the classroom in addition to being the director of tamuhack for the past two years yadav has held several internships at companies such as ck-12 apple nextdoor and facebook each of these not only brought invaluable growth for yadav but also presented unique experiences for instance holding internships at two smaller startup companies allowed yadav to work on multiple teams and projects within the organizations
at nextdoor yadav was able to interact directly with users across the world hearing their unique use cases and understanding their varying needs he learned user empathy and used this to inform his engineering decisions that followed yadav explained that it was very eye opening to see whether people liked or did not like something that he helped build while at apple yadav worked as part of the apple maps team where he learned how to navigate a complex product firsthand "mapping is a hard technical problem because it holds an enormous amount of data " yadav said "you are trying to basically fit the whole earth into a phone it was a phenomenal initiative to be a part of" during his internship at facebook yadav knew he wanted to be a part of a very technical aspect of the organization so he chose to work on the infrastructure team while completing his internship he decided to participate in an internal company hackathon as well for the hackathon he worked alongside his team of fellow interns on a project to integrate political media into facebooks existing structure this side project resulted in yadav and his peers presenting it to mark zuckerberg and the rest of facebooks leadership team who were impressed with their idea to increase civic engagement on the platform "watching people around you use something that you built from scratch is a great feeling " yadav said yadav who will be graduating this may said that faculty interaction outside of classes was definitely a highlight of his time as a student he has worked alongside several faculty members in the department including dr james caverlee associate professor; dr aakash tyagi professor of practice; and mostly with dr jennifer welch chevron professor ii and regents professor "getting to understand their research and their angle on how they are contributing to this whole body of computing knowledge has been fantastic " he said "the reason i am working with dr welch now is because i had a fair idea of what she is working on and i could see myself contributing in the same field" yadav believes it is important to get to know people with expertise in a multitude of areas because computing is not just one sphere but rather multiple parts that come together from artificial intelligence to robotics data mining and systems they are all interconnected he also credits attending computing conferences sponsored by the department as opportunities to meet even more computing professionals and peers in the field that he would not have had the opportunity to meet otherwise
the wind and water have subsided after hurricane harvey swept through texas in august but the road to recovery is long to help the process move along engineering students from texas a&m university spent their winter break assisting the federal emergency management agency (fema) where they could "i wanted to contribute to assisting my hometown (houston) while also working with fellow engineers and engineering students " said irfan beg a senior mechanical engineering student "my fathers car was damaged severely one of my best friends from high school had water damage in the carpets and tiles on the floors of his house"
thirty students from different engineering majors volunteered for a 10-day internship with fema all interns first went through five days of training with site inspectors and then spent 10 days in the field "we were very happy that these students chose to invest time on this and take part in this program and provide some service for the state " said magda lagoudas executive director for industry and nonprofit partnerships traci brasher recovery division director for region 6 of fema said the federal agency viewed this first of its kind internship as a chance for students to gain knowledge about emergency management as well as open up future opportunities "i dont know that weve done anything like this any faster with any university ever " brasher said "i cant say enough about the partnership that we have gained between fema and texas and the university in order to do this" freshman engineering major lorenzo martinez said the program sounded like a prime opportunity to help his hometown of houston and gain internship experience early in his college career "i felt that i could give back and do my part to help out in any way i could " martinez said "also my parents both of whom are first responders had to help and be out during the storm so i figured i would pay their hard work forward myself"
james stone site inspector for the fema disaster team said he had the opportunity to work with some of the students during the december training and the students jumped right in and were not afraid to tackle anything "i think they have experienced a little reality check in their life and they will go forward with a different attitude on what it takes to go out there and do the work " stone said the student-inspector teams were sent into the field to assess public infrastructure as part of femas public assistance program assignments included meeting with applicants to identify measure and quantify structure damage in public areas "when we did go out to a site in houston affected by hurricane harvey i got to shadow a site investigator on a community park that had been under five feet of water or more during the flooding " said civil engineering junior anh duong "it was a very unique experience" during site visits students were expected to talk with the public to record damage then report and file all the information "the biggest thing i learned was how meticulous everything at fema is " said ocean engineering junior david nelle "every detail of every damage is documented and everything has to be denoted a certain way there are specific ways to denote everything" douglas edge biomedical engineering senior said he gained knowledge from the different individuals from fema he worked with
"i learned about construction and civil engineering principles " edge said "i learned about the various locales that those folks came from-many of femas employees are not originally from texas i also learned about leadership and management in an office setting" although many students completed their work over the winter break they have until april to complete their internships some students such as general engineering freshman isabel londrigan are planning to complete their work over spring break in march "these site inspections will lead to fema granting the state the funding they need to get houstons facilities back on its feet and in full recovery " londrigan said for many students the internship opened their eyes to the enormous role site inspectors play in the aftermath of disasters "the site inspectors are the eyes and ears for everyone else " said mechanical engineering sophomore volunteer rebekah legband "they are the ones who actually see the damage in person which makes the information they bring back with them vital" "site inspections mark the beginning of (the residents) road to recovery " said jason nguyen industrial engineering senior audree co manufacturing and mechanical engineering tech senior said the experience gave her a new vantage point on the recovery process a sentiment shared by many of her fellow students "with fema im able to help as a financial liaison instead of a disaster relief volunteer " co said "this allows me to get a better understanding of the recovery process"
on march 5 the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university hosted kristina swallow president of the american society of civil engineers (asce)
during her visit swallow had the opportunity to tour the center for infrastructure renewal (cir) and rellis campus with dr zachary grasley cir director professor and presidential impact fellow; dr stuart anderson assistant vice chancellor for facilities planning and management and zachry chair in construction integration; dr peter keating director of operations; and dr robin autenrieth department head and ap and florence wiley professor ii the cir is a state-of-the-art research center that will house researchers who are developing advanced and sustainable materials and structural systems that will reduce cost and extend infrastructure life safety resiliency and durability the rellis campus fosters collaboration of advanced research technology development testing and evaluation higher education and hands-on career training
later in the day autenrieth and stephen franklin executive director for facilities and planning and management gave swallow a tour of the newly redesigned zachry engineering education complex set to open fall 2018 "it was a pleasure to host ms swallow and show her our new research and education facilities at texas a&m " autenrieth said "for our students it was also a wonderful opportunity for them to engage with an engineer who is an inspiring role model in the field and promotes the exciting future of civil engineering" that evening swallow gave a presentation at a well-attended meeting with the asce student chapter at texas a&m her presentation addressed how relevant civil engineering is to society and our world she also offered students practical advice on how to achieve great things in their career and make a difference in the field "i think the presentation showed the abundant amount of resources and networking opportunities that asce has to offer " said alyssa ornelas civil engineering senior and president of the texas a&m chapter of asce "this was a great opportunity for our students to get to see what kind of role they can have in the future" swallow is a professional engineer envision sustainability professional and an asce fellow in addition to her role as asce president swallow serves as program manager for the city of las vegas where she oversees a team of engineers responsible for public works projects prior to her current appointment she worked alongside senator tom udall as the lead on transportation policy since 1995 she has been an active member of asce and has served on several committees within the organization honors include receiving the alumna of the year award from the university of nevada las vegas in 2013; the asce citizen engineer award and edmund friedman young engineer award for professional achievement in 2008; the outstanding young alumni award from the university of arizona department of civil engineering and engineering mechanics in 2005; and the asce young engineer of the year in 2000 and 1998 for the western region and southern nevada
what initially appeared to be the underdog student team has proven they have what it takes to compete with the help of industry leaders aggie ocean discovery a team of students from the college of engineering at texas a&m university entered the shell ocean discovery xprize competition a mere three years ago they have now been named a finalist in the global competition challenging teams to push the boundaries of ocean technologies the xprize® has a reputation of presenting impossible challenges that inspire new industries and new ideas the finalists will take 3-d scans of a 500-kilometer patch of ocean floor at a depth of 4 000 meters (almost 25 miles) "as a society we are entering a technological revolution to be successful and keep ahead of the constantly changing climate it requires a collaborative effort from the most innovative partners in their respective industries " said dylan blakeslee a senior in the department of ocean engineering "the shell xprize pushes the students and their partners to look ahead and develop next generation technology having partners as passionate and innovative as deep down inc has allowed us to create technology incomparable with anything on the market today without the industry support that we have been afforded this wouldnt be possible"
the final part of the competition will take place at an undisclosed location to protect the integrity of the judging area the aggie team will be competing against nine other teams as finalists toward the end of 2018 "when i first looked into the competition i was specifically interested in the fact that it was a challenge to map the ocean floor " blakeslee said "only five percent of the ocean has been mapped yet it feeds a billion people and provides 50 percent of our oxygen we have mapped land mass via satellite but have yet to come up with a viable solution to map the ocean floor and find what lays at the deepest depths of our oceans" after deciding to accept the competitions challenge blakeslee turned to dr sharath girimaji department head in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m "the first meeting ended with dr girimaji expressing concerns over the entry fee and an endless list of questions " blakeslee said "the following day i returned with a pamphlet and 100 pages of documents i made to address his questions and dr girimaji said okay you have me convinced" the next step of the process was to motivate peers in all disciplines to join the effort and take time out of their already busy schedules to dedicate themselves completely to this project
the texas a&m team has a torpedo-like autonomous underwater vehicle (auv) called marlin that will endure crushing pressure utter darkness and will navigate autonomously without human intervention marlin will send data to its counterpart a remote surface vessel (rsv) called wahoo that in turn will send the data back to the control center on land where the data will be received and analyzed marlin carries an on-board intelligence system a long-range optical and acoustic communication and reference system an ultra-high resolution 3-d scanner inertial navigation system doppler velocity tracking chemical sensors to monitor the environment a pump jet propulsion for high speed operation forward dive plane for quick descents and a wave energy conversion system to operate all of this technology marlin is also equipped with a 48 kilowatt-per-hour battery system which is more than the average household uses per day "many students have a full workload with their current degree requirements and also family commitments " blakeslee said "we have been extremely fortunate to have many students involved in this project some who have only been able to commit for a semester and some that have been in for the long haul; all have been important on this amazing journey" the team has an application process for new members to complete and specifically looks for a certain grade point average and the amount of time one can commit to the project "we are focused on a goal which is to benefit mankind and everyone has contributed in whatever way possible whether it be short term or long term " blakeslee said "many students joined our team and focused on our goals straight out of high school we have had the help from middle school students in this process so creativity doesnt have an age limit to participate" manpower is only one end of the spectrum in terms of the help the team would need in order to build an adequate machine to answer the competitions quest "joining such an exclusive competition we knew that we would be going up against the most talented and best-funded groups around the world " blakeslee said "we also knew that billion-dollar companies have tried and failed to solve exactly what the xprize requires" one of the greatest obstacles the team faced was sharing their vision with companies to take a risk with them and help finance their endeavor financially and through equipment donations "our team has always had a unique advantage as students we have been able to develop our innovative ideas with the years of experience and funding of our partners to support " blakeslee said "we have been extremely fortunate and honored to have our platinum sponsor deep down inc look beyond the age of the students they have invested in and see that we are a competent group that has come up with ideas that seem so impossible and believe in the fact that we can make it possible this collaboration and the passion of all those involved has allowed us to remain ahead of the curve" the texas a&m team has secured other valuable gold partners including oceaneering subctech ses networks and ix blue all of whom the team are grateful to for their participation
"this is a multidisciplinary project " blakeslee said "we have excellent students from ocean engineering electrical engineering mechanical engineering chemical engineering computer science and engineering biomedical engineering and even geology we have a team that works well together and have consistently solved problems that we did not anticipate" members have partnered with deep down inc which has financed the project to utilize their facilities to build marlin while learning from their engineers through internships the students have become very close to all of the industry partners that have made marlin become a reality and contender in the competition "without the valuable mentoring of ronald smith ceo of deep down inc and his staff we would not be where we are today " blakeslee said "ron believed in us he put his money behind us every step of the way along this journey we have had successes we have had failures and we have also learned that nothing worth having is going to come easy but with sheer hard work determination and will power the impossible becomes the possible" for blakeslee the goal has shifted away from winning the competition and transitioned to a lifetime passion developing a suitable and cost-effective fleet of auvs to deploy around the world for research and accessible education "i believe that our technology will have lasting effects on our planet uncovering artifacts unknown species and even new cures for disease " blakeslee said "theres a lot of incentive to monetize what we have built but most importantly for me its about securing our planet for future generations" marlin is currently on display on the college station campus in the department of ocean engineering
the two organizations will collaborate to capitalize on major research education and training efforts the leadership of the texas a&m energy institute (tamei) a joint institute between texas a&m university and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) along with the tees gas and fuels research center (gfrc) have announced a new partnership that will align the research education and training interests of both organizations for their mutual benefit with common interests in the pursuit of the advancement of knowledge and science-related to energy-related and energy-intensive processes systems and opportunities tamei and gfrcs objectives are well aligned complementary and stand to benefit texas a&m tees the texas a&m university system the state of texas and the broader community further the leaders of these organizations anticipate added value and enhancement for both organizations through increased collaborations between the two parties we very much welcome this partnership said dr stratos pistikopoulos interim co-director and deputy director of the tamei this will allow us to create synergies and opportunities between our two organizations in the strategically important energy space of natural and shale gas and fuels further this will strengthen the existing relationships between our qatar campus and main campus for energy research education and training texas a&m university has played a critical role in the energy future by leading the oil era in the united states with many impacts globally said dr nimir o elbashir director of the gfrc the partnership of the tees gas and fuels research center with the energy institute provides an excellent opportunity for the university to now lead in the shale oil and gas era it is anticipated that new approaches will be discovered through this partnership previously unavailable research opportunities will be presented and diverse sets of individuals will gain mastery of concepts through innovative educational programs
dr jay porter was recently appointed associate dean for engineering at texas a&m university at galveston and will assume his new role on june 1 2018 porter has been a faculty member in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university for 20 years he is currently a professor in the electronic systems engineering technology program as well as the associated department head for undergraduate studies porters research interests include analog and rf electronics instrumentation and measurement virtual instrumentation development mixed signal integrated circuit test and characterization and magnetic resonance imaging he is passionate about stem education and promotion and has been involved in numerous projects including a $1 million itest grant to educate teachers about stem principles and careers
on april 20th 2018 dr phanourios tamamis assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the 2018 kaneka junior faculty award for outstanding performance and dedication in his research recognized by the polymer technology center of the texas a&m engineering experiment station and the kaneka foundation tamamis research focuses on computational biophysics and biomolecular engineering with the aim to address key challenges in amyloid diseases amyloid biomaterials and the structural elucidation of key biological axes in his award talk at the polymer technology industrial consortium meeting tamamis presented part of his research which starts from understanding and inhibiting protein aggregation and the formation of amyloid fibrils that occur in many age-related diseases (eg alzheimers disease) and aims to exploit amyloid formation for the discovery of novel biopolymer-based materials with applications in biomedicine energy and the environment in this direction tamamis lab is developing the first computational framework for the design of functional amyloid materials such a framework is expected to revolutionize how functional amyloid biopolymer-based materials are designed and thus lead to novel amyloid materials of the future earlier in 2018 tamamis was awarded a grant from the national institute on aging part of the national institutes of health for his research on potential therapeutics for alzheimers disease parkinsons disease and type 2 diabetes
a group of juniors from the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university had the opportunity to give back to their host community while studying abroad in egypt this winter dr alaa elwany assistant professor in the department taught the 14 students during the faculty-led three-week program elwany who is originally from alexandria egypt reached out to the local rotary club to see how the students could give back to the community they would be visiting
the students volunteered their time and money to help set up a special-purpose lab for elementary school students in a local underprivileged school the students who will use the lab have special needs and are part of the governments fusion program as part of the program students with special needs study one-third of the curriculum in the lab which is equipped with customized educational tools designed to address their needs one-third of their curriculum is taught to them in that lab which is set up for that particular purpose and then the rest of the curriculum is taught to them with the rest of the kids so that they fuse without being left out elwany said once onsite the aggie students worked with the local students to learn how to use the educational tools provided on computers and other custom-designed educational tools they worked with the local student chapter of the institute of industrial and systems engineers to communicate between arabic and english it is a very welcoming country elwany said in appreciation of what they did the kids made a little performance for them where they sang local welcoming songs and held heart-shaped flags of the us and egypt to demonstrate unity we got local egyptian school students who never got out of their cities to interact with our students along with volunteering the students completed a three-hour course and explored the city visiting about 19 tourist sites elwany said the overall experience can have a positive impact on students as they move forward in their careers theyre enhancing their skills and some of them may aspire to spend some time working outside the country so this experience was perfect for them to learn how to interact with a radically different culture elwany said this december will be the third year for the study abroad program to egypt
hannah stroud and samuel murley undergraduate students in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university won the undergraduate student research poster portion of the university technical competition (utc) hosted by the south texas division of american society of mechanical engineers (asme) the pair undergraduate researchers in the multifunctional materials and aerospace structures optimization lab led by dr darren hartl presented their poster multiphysical characterization of avian inspired morphing wing section covering the design of the wing itself and an overview on the characterization techniques including 3-d digital image correlation (dic) which gives shape data for the wing the poster also covered infrared thermography (ir) which allows the researchers to map temperature data onto the shape as well as experimental setup and the dic/ir results and aerodynamic results from their test for their research the students have a wing that morphs using thermally activated shape memory alloy actuators on the lower surface and they wanted to know if they were achieving the shape they expected (to give them higher lift) when they morphed it under aero loads what they discovered was they were able to morph to the same shape consistently and affect the lift and pitching moment in repeatable methods utc is a research competition for graduate and undergraduate students at asme-partnered universities where students have the opportunity to present their mechanically-focused research or design projects to industry and university professionals the students were among 25 teams comprised of 70 students participating in three categories: undergraduate design/capstone poster undergraduate research poster and graduate research presentation teams competed from texas a&m the university of houston rice university texas a&m university–corpus christi and prairie view a&m university
eight teams from universities across north america will gather april 30 to may 5 at yuma arizona for the society of automotive engineers (sae) autodrive challenge a three-year competition that allows university teams to develop and demonstrate their own autonomous vehicle the competition is broken down into segments of yearly benchmarks with the goal of having a vehicle that can navigate an urban driving course autonomously while adhering to specific conditions and requirements identified by the sae when general motors (gm) and sae international announced last year that texas a&m university was one of the eight north american universities selected to compete in the three-year challenge the team was supplied with a chevy bolt and has been working for the past year to prepare the vehicle and themselves for the upcoming benchmark showcase
three students from the college of engineering have been named distinguished graduate students for 2018 they were among a group of 16 graduate students from texas a&m university who are pursuing their masters or doctoral degrees the students were recognized for their exemplary accomplishment during a ceremony on april 23 at the association of former students clayton w williams jr alumni center on the texas a&m campus the 2018 recipients from the college of engineering are: research- doctoral william hamilton department of computer science faculty advisor: dr andruid kerne charles brandon sweeney department of materials science and engineering faculty advisor: dr micah green research- masters joshua harris department of aerospace engineering faculty advisor: dr john valasek
on april 16 dr james holste senior professor and professor emeritus in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university was presented the prestigious donald l katz award by the gpa midstream association (formerly the gas processors association)
the donald l katz award recognizes outstanding work in industry science and educational excellence in the classroom holste was presented the award during the gpa midstream associations 97th annual convention in austin texas holste who retired from full-time teaching in 2017 has more than 42 years of service at texas a&m he was the first associate department head in the chemical engineering department and the first associate director of the office of graduate studies at texas a&m he also served as assistant dean and assistant agency director for research in the engineering program and later as associate dean for graduate studies and international programs in the texas a&m college of science he spent seven years in doha qatar during the start-up of texas a&m university at qatar serving initially as the first associate dean for academic affairs and later as the first associate dean for research and graduate studies holste previously received the association of former students distinguished achievement award for research and he was a member of the inaugural group of tees senior fellows he also received an outstanding alumnus award from concordia university–nebraska he served for three decades on the american society of mechanical engineers/ american institute of chemical engineers (aiche) joint committee on thermophysical properties for nine years on the board of directors of the concordia university system and nine years as a member of the working group on thermophysical properties of refrigerants of the international energy agency
the texas coastal storm rapid response (coastrr) team is comprised of researchers from texas a&m university – college station and galveston and rice university dr jens figlus assistant professor in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m is the principal investigator on this project the team is specifically looking for information to help them understand if storm impacts will erode the beach; scarp overtop or completely wipe out sand dunes; or if sediment deposits could require expensive clean-up efforts when hurricane paths are forecast to hit a certain coastal area it is important to know ahead of time what the impact to the coastal morphology is figlus said our field measurements of hydrodynamics and sedimentation during and after hurricane impact allow us to improve those predictive models and tools so they can then be used by federal state and local agencies to issue notifications to the public allocate resources and plan for the appropriate response based on expected local conditions currently rapid response field measurements of impacts to coastal systems from extreme storms such as hurricane harvey are difficult to collect this is because of short notice preventing deployment of the instruments potential of instrument failure or loss and uncertainty of actual storm impact for specific locations
"the work provides further advances to our capabilities to measure detailed hydrodynamic processes such as currents and waves across the surface of barrier island systems impacted by extreme events figlus said this project is important to me because it combines fundamental work on better understanding our coastal systems with practical applications of rapid response to coastal hurricane impacts to address the dilemma coastrr is trying to link measurements of storm hydrodynamics across stretches of barrier island systems during storm impact with observations of coastal morphology change in the days and months following the storm the researchers are specifically interested in infragravity waves produced by hurricanes and how these low-frequency water surface motions affect coastal erosion and accretion patterns as well as associated damages of these massive storms infragravity waves are water waves within a specific frequency range between 004 and 0003 hertz (hz) figlus said this means they have wave periods the time between two consecutive wave crests passing the same location between 25 and 333 seconds similar to how the different frequencies of light waves from the sun can create different colors in a rainbow water waves in specific frequency ranges hitting a coastline can have very specific effects on the coastline infragravity waves have much lower frequencies or longer wave periods than regular wind waves you can see on the beach with the naked eye every day figlus said this property makes them a primary suspect driving sediment erosion and deposition on beaches especially since they become more pronounced due to storm activity hurricane harvey presented a wide range of effects on the texas coast including complete devastation and major erosion near landfall as well as the deposition of sediment called accretion at other locations the observed effects of infragravity wave interactions with the coastal system has been exciting to explore figlus said being able to predict precisely which impact happens where and to what extent is the challenge that this research is helping to tackle