From left: Rodrigo Garza Urquiza, Rachel Oyler, David Gent, Alexandra Iacob, Colin Bailie, Mark Deimund.

The Dwight Look College of Engineering at Texas A&M University honored five students with its Craig C. Brown Outstanding Senior Engineer Award during a banquet at Miramont Country Club in Bryan.

Seniors Colin Bailie, Mark Deimund, Alexandra (Sandra) Iacob, Rachel Oyler and Rodrigo Garza Urquiza received the annual award due to their academic achievement, character and leadership abilities.

Dr. G. Kemble Bennett, vice chancellor and dean of engineering, presented the awards to the students.

Colin Bailie is a mechanical engineering major from Plano. He is described as a disciplined, dedicated and well-spoken student, both inside the classroom and out.

He is a member of several on-campus groups, and has held leadership roles with the Singing Cadets and the a capella singing group Apotheosis. He has given back to the community through Habitat for Humanity, Replant and Relay for Life.

Bailie is involved with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Nuclear Society. He has been inducted into the Pi Tau Sigma and Tau Beta Pi honor societies.

During summer 2008 Bailie was a test intern for Enfora in Dallas where he helped move the company toward automation. This past summer he was one of 15 research interns at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, and will submit a journal article based on his findings. Currently he conducts research with a Texas A&M professor to build a shock tube for better understanding of multiphase shock accelerated flow physics. Bailie will graduate in May 2010.

Mark Deimund is a chemical engineering major from Oklahoma City, Okla. Cited by one professor as among his top 10 undergraduates in the last quarter-century. Deimund is a member of four honor societies: Tau Beta Pi, Omega Chi Epsilon, Phi Kappa Phi and Phi Eta Sigma. His current term as president caps three years of leadership roles in the Texas A&M chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

He has been a Chem-E Car team leader since 2007, guiding his group to multiple wins at regional and national competitions. He has worked summers for Celanese Chemicals as an R&D intern in Texas and a process engineering intern in Virginia. His volunteer work has included Texas A&M Big Event, Habitat for Humanity and Super Summer Southern Baptist Youth Leadership Camp.

Deimund has assisted with Texas A&M research on a biomass processing technique that is being patented and published. He visited 15 states during travels this past summer and still managed to earn his Business Management Certificate for Engineers. He will graduate in May 2010.

Alexandra (Sandra) Iacob is a biomedical engineering major from Bucharest, Romania. A University Research Scholar, Iacob is a three-year leader in the Society of Women Engineers, currently serving as internal vice president. She also has served as president of the Romanian Club.

During summer 2009 Iacob participated in Texas A&M’s Undergraduate Summer Research Grant program, after concluding two years as an undergraduate research assistant in the chemical engineering department. She interned at the Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Institute at Brooke Army Medical Center and spent one semester as a student researcher with the Michael E. DeBakey Institute at Texas A&M. She gives back to the community as a hospital volunteer helping in the pre-op room.

Fluent in four languages and knowledgeable of two more, Iacob is recognized for her compassion, leadership and dedication to making the world better for others. She will graduate in December 2009 with the distinction of having completed the Engineering Scholars Program.

Rachel Oyler is an electrical engineering major from Sundown, Texas. She is a member of the Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu and Phi Eta Sigma honor societies, and the Society of Women Engineers.

Oyler has been a leader in her sorority, Gamma Phi Beta, earning two of its highest awards for exemplifying the core values of love and learning. Since 2005 she has continued to volunteer at a local camp for handicapped, disabled and terminally ill children. Her summers at Texas A&M have been well spent, including a summer internship with The Boeing Company’s International Space Station electrical power system group, Study Abroad in Italy and a summer internship with the IT Design Systems group at Texas Instruments.

She is repeatedly described as exceptionally intelligent and an outstanding leader and role model with a superb work ethic and enviable time management skills—a person who exemplifies the honor and tradition of Texas A&M. Oyler will graduate in December 2009.

Rodrigo Garza Urquiza is a mechanical engineering major from Corregidora, Queretaro, Mexico. He is president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers student section. ASME and Tau Beta Pi national engineering honor society nominated him for the Leadership Exchange Program in Qatar, where he spent spring break 2009.

He has enjoyed three internships: systems engineering for Compressor Controls Corporation; mechanical research, Chicago Bridge and Iron; and sand control technology, Halliburton. He currently serves as a research assistant in the Texas A&M Turbomachinery Laboratory. Professors have described him as a very rare student and the best all-around undergraduate in mechanical engineering at Texas A&M, crediting him with the talent and drive to succeed in any professional situation.

He said prides himself on staying active outside of the classroom as well as with extracurricular activities such as the Texas A&M Golf Club, tennis intramurals, triathlon training and giving back to the community through Big Event and Aggie Replant. He will graduate in May 2010.

Each of the seniors received an engraved medallion and a $5,000 educational grant. Their names appear on a plaque in the Zachry Engineering Center.

The Engineering Faculty Senior Award was renamed the Craig C. Brown Outstanding Senior Engineer Award in 1996 in recognition of Brown’s endowment for the award. He received the award as a Class of 1975 civil engineering senior. Currently, Brown is chief operating officer, owner and president of Bray International Inc. as well as chairman and president of the Craig and Galen Brown Foundation.

David W. Gent, Class of ’75, senior vice president of Bray International, represented Brown, who was sick with the flu. Gent also received the award as a senior electrical engineering major.

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Award is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. on young scientists and engineers in the early stages of their research careers

Texas A&M Engineering’s Dr. Gregory Huff and Dr. Anastasia Muliana were among the 100 beginning researchers named by President Barack Obama as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on young professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.

Huff and Muliana were among the 41 scholars nominated by the U.S. Department of Defense. The recipient scientists and engineers will receive their awards in the Fall at a White House ceremony.

Dr. Gregory Huff

Huff is an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He joined the Texas A&M Engineering faculty in 2006, in the electrical and computer engineering department’s Electromagnetics and Microwaves group. He received his Ph.D., master’s and bachelor’s degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Recent honors include receiving the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award in 2009 and a Young Scientist Award from L’Union Radio-Scientifique Internationale (URSI), the International Union of Radio Science.

Huff’s research interests include biologically inspired mechanisms and dynamic material systems (microfluidics, nanoparticles, etc.) for electromagnetic, acoustic and IR agility; the theory, design and application of reconfigurable antennas and circuits (sensors, phase shifters, filters, etc.); multifunctional (structural, electromagnetic, etc.) RF, microwave and millimeter-wave radiating systems and smart skins; studying the role of reconfigurable/multifunctional antennas in spread spectrum digital communication techniques; multiple antenna techniques; and the placement and electromagnetic interference (EMI) issues arising from the conformal integration high speed devices and radiators into host chassis.

Dr. Anastasia Muliana

Muliana, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Muliana came to Texas A&M in 2004.She received her master’s degree and Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology.  She is a member of the American Society of Composites and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. She has authored numerous publications and in 2005 received the CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation.

In 2008 Muliana received a grant as part of the Air Force’s Young Investigator Research Program. Her proposal for research was to develop a framework that integrates coupled thermal, electrical and mechanical responses of the constituents of composites to the overall responses of smart composites, with application to morphing structures. She also plans to investigate long-term responses of these smart composites. The proposed framework will enhance understanding of the multifunctional performance of smart structures under extreme environments and can support design optimization of intelligent aerospace vehicles, which can significantly reduce development cost and time.

The Presidential Early Career Awards embody the high priority the Administration places on producing outstanding scientists and engineers to advance the nation’s goals and contribute to all sectors of theeconomy. Nine Federal departments and agencies join together annually to nominate the most meritorious young scientists and engineers — researchers whose early accomplishments show the greatest promise for strengthening America’s leadership in science and technologyand contributing to the awarding agencies’ missions.

“These extraordinarily gifted young scientists and engineers represent the best in our country,” President Obama said. “With their talent, creativity and dedication, I am confident that they will lead their fields in new breakthroughs and discoveries and help us use science and technology to lift up our nation and our world.”

The awards, established by President Clinton in February 1996, are coordinated by the Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President. Awardees are selected on the basis of two criteria: Pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and a commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, public education, or community outreach. Winning scientists and engineers receive up to a five-year research grant to further their study in support of critical government missions.

Submitted by Lesley Kriewald, lesleyk@tamu.edu

Popularity: 56% [?]

Dr. Haiyan Wang, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University, received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in a ceremony today (Dec. 19) at the White House for her work with high-temperature superconductors.

Dr. Haiyan Wang

Wang was among 67 of the nation’s best and brightest young scientists and engineers honored in a ceremony presided over by John H. Marburger III, science advisor to the president and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. She was among the 15 scholars nominated by the U.S. Department of Defense for the award, which is the highest honor for faculty members who are beginning their independent research careers.

To support he basic research, Wang and other DoD 2007 PECASE recipients will receive $200,000 a year for five years.

In 2007 Wang received a research grant awarded by the Air Force Research Office’s Young Investigator Research Program (YIP). Her three-year grant — part of a new $6.3 million program intended to encourage outstanding young science and engineering researchers to conduct basic research — to study the new superconductors, flat ribbons of metal coated with yttrium barium copper oxide. The new conductors are expected to be able to carry three to five times as much current than conventional power cables and do it at higher temperatures than earlier versions.

The new superconductors are important to development of new Air Force energy weapons and the U.S. Navy’s Electric Warships and Combat Vehicles programs. They also should make possible more-efficient and less-expensive power generators, high-frequency source magnets, transformers and electric motors, Wang said.

In 2008 Wang also received the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award for her research into multifunctional ceramic nanocomposites. The study will allow processing high-quality ceramic nanocomposites to meet the Navy’s needs on new structural materials for future ships and vehicles.

Wang joined the electrical and computer engineering department in January 2006. She is also a researcher in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Division of the Texas Engineering Experiment Station, the engineering research agency of the State of Texas and a member of The Texas A&M University System.

Before coming to Texas A&M, Wang was on the staff of the Los Alamos National Laboratory as a post-doctoral fellow and a permanent staff member. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Nanchang University (China) and a master’s degree from the Institute of Metal Research (China). She received the Ph.D. degree in materials science and engineering from North Carolina State University.

Wang’s research interests lie in the area of functional oxide and nitride thin films for microelectronics, optoelectronics, high-temperature superconductors, magnetic and structural applications. Her expertise is thin-film growth and structural characterizations.

The award, established by President Clinton in 1996, is the nation’s highest honor for scientists and engineers at the outset of their independent research careers. Eight federal departments and agencies join together annually to nominate the top young scientists and engineers for the PECASE who broadly advance the frontiers of science and technology to benefit the agencies’ missions.

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Written by Lesley V. Kriewald

Popularity: 35% [?]

COLLEGE STATION, Texas— School’s out for summer, but not for some teachers.

This summer 18 high school teachers are students at Texas A&M University, participating in the Enrichment Experiences in Engineering program, or E3.

The participants come to Texas A&M from all over the state to get a little hands-on experience for themselves.

E3 is offered by the Dwight Look College of Engineering and the Texas Engineering Experiment Station (TEES), in partnership with the National Science Foundation. The program is designed to benefit secondary school science and math teachers through a four-week engineering experience in which they become students, learning new materials and experiments to take back to their classrooms when school starts again in the fall.

E3 organizers say there is a huge need for engineers in today’s world, and this program creates awareness of all engineering fields so that high school students can be introduced to the discipline at an early age. E3 also promotes awareness of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields and targets the support of student success on the TAKS.

The teachers receive a stipend to participate in the program as well as materials and equipment to implement their new knowledge and techniques in the classroom.

E3 enhances the teacher’s laboratory skills and techniques through the latest in engineering research, and each teacher is matched with a member of the Texas A&M engineering faculty.

Throughout the course, teachers spend a lot of time in the lab with their faculty mentors. Crystal Woods, an Algebra I teacher at Conrad High School in the Dallas Independent School District, has spent her time in the lab working with thin-film growth in building circuit chips. She said that this program for teachers helps create a new excitement about learning that can be taken back to the classroom.

“It inspires me to explore more research studies from an engineers’ perspective and try to make the connection to a math concept in a classroom. It creates a more rigorous, hands-on environment that the students can be engaged with and enjoy,” Woods said.

Scott Griffin, an Integrated Physics and Chemistry teacher at Bay City High School, is another teacher who participates in the program this summer.

“This is ’Tim the Toolman‘ heaven. There are “toys” here that people like me just drool over. The information available here is monstrous. I love being exposed to the faculty and students and would love to absorb it all, but it’s like trying to get a drink of water out of a fire house,” Griffin said.

Cindy Eppes is working on shape memory alloy spring tests. She currently teaches Technology for grades 9-12 at Westside High School of Houston ISD. This fall, she will teach 9^th grade students who are enrolled in the magnet school at Westside High School, Westside Engineering and Geosciences Academy. This new academy focuses on problem based learning with an engineering foundation. She said the knowledge gained here will help benefit her in the classroom this fall when she begins her technology class with a new outlook on engineering.

“It’s an amazing opportunity. The exposure I’m getting is great and I will be able to bring this experience back to the kids,” Eppes said.

The teachers spend most of their day in lab, but gather together daily as a group to develop materials to take back to their classrooms. In addition to lab, the group will visit LynnTech, Austin Energy and the South Texas Project Plant. Each Tuesday they have ‘Dinner with an Expert’ and have lively discussions on different engineering fields. E3 organizers say that the teachers are kept busy, but leave with a good understanding of engineering which they enthusiastically share with their students.

Contact: Jacqueline Hodge at jqhodge@tamu.edu or Lauren Kern at laurenkern@tees.tamus.edu

Popularity: 6% [?]