August 2014

Dave Lucas, a veteran of the oil and gas industry, has been appointed as a subsea professor of practice and director of the subsea engineering program in the Dwight Look College of Engineering at Texas A&M.

Dr. Yue Kuo, professor and holder of the Dow Professorship in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, has one of the most cited papers in ECS Transactions, a journal on solid-state and electrochemistry studies.

The Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University is excited to announce two additions to its faculty; Dr. Gabriel (Gabby) Silberman, executive director of technology strategy and university alliances in Dell Research, is serving as adjunct professor and Dr. Amy Gooch, research scientist with the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute at the University of Utah, is now serving as adjunct assistant professor in the department.

Dr. Valerie Taylor, senior associate dean for academic affairs and the Royce E. Wisenbaker professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, is a co-PI on a National Science Foundation (NSF) project establishing an I-Corps Node focused on promoting innovation in the Southwest region of the United States.

Dr. Dezhen Song received a three-year National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to develop a new robotic system, algorithms and control schemes for sustainable civil infrastructures.

Dr. Nick Duffield recently joined the faculty of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University as professor in the Computer Engineering and Systems Group (CESG).

Brennan Bailey, a former graduate student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M University, has been named recipient of the Acta Student Award for her contribution to the manuscript, "Continuous gradient scaffolds for rapid screening of cell-material interactions and interfacial tissue regeneration."

Dr. Raymundo Arroyave, associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, is part of a group from The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS) that is leading a new study on behalf of the Material Measurement Laboratory of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Dr. César O. Malavé, professor and holder of the Sugar and Mike Barnes Department Head Chair in Industrial and Systems Engineering, has been chosen as the featured speaker for the 2014 Undergraduate Convocation Aug. 31 in Reed Arena.

Dr. James Caverlee, associate professor of computer science and engineering at Texas A&M University, was chosen by the Google Faculty Research Awards Program as a recipient of financial support for his proposal in the social media category, "Modeling and Inferring Local Expertise."

The Zachry Department of Civil Engineering at Texas A&M University will hold the 22nd Buchanan Lecture on November 7, 2014 at the College Station Hilton at 2 p.m. in the Brazos Amphitheater.

The research of Dr. Jodie L. Lutkenhaus, assistant professor and the William and Ruth Neely Faculty Fellow in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, has received a "Hot" classification by the Royal Society of Chemistry's journal Soft Matter.

Dr. Jenn-Tai Liang will be joining the faculty of the department of petroleum engineering this fall.

The number of endowed scholarships in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University has doubled in the past year thanks to the generosity of members of its Advisory Council and other former students, faculty and friends of the department.

Marlene Bencomo, an incoming Ph.D student working with Dr. Sunil Chirayath, was recently awarded the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Bridge to the Doctorate fellowship.

Dr. Robin Autenrieth, Department Head and A.P. and Florence Wiley Professor III, is pleased to announce the addition of two new faculty members, Dr. Zachary Grasley and Mr. Jeffrey Otey.

The Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University has added some exciting improvements to the department.

The Engineering Academic and Student Affairs office, with the help of several sponsors, recently hosted the inaugural Aggies Invent at the Engineering Innovation Center on the Texas A&M campus.

The Dwight Look College of Engineering at Texas A&M University hosted 143 prospective students on campus during two camps held in July.

The Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University has honored scientists presented with the A.M. Turing Award by hanging posters in the Harvey R. “Bum” Bright building, Teague, and Reed-McDonald.

The Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University took delivery in June on a 2011 Presidential Club Car (aka Golf Cart/SMV - Slow Moving Vehicle) from Rick's Golf Cars in College Station.

An endowed scholarship in memory of Colonel Edmond R. McCarthy ’66, USAF (Ret.) has been established for full-time students in good standing pursuing an undergraduate degree in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University.

Dr. Nancy M. Amato, Unocal Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, was invited to speak at the Robotics: Science and Systems Conference hosted by the University of California, Berkeley last month. Amato's talk was titled "Using Motion Planning to Study Protein Motions."

Zimo Wang, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering and student of Dr. Satish T.S. Bukkapatnam, recently won first place at the annual Industrial and Systems Engineering Research Conference (ISERC) held in Montreal, Canada.

Dr. Carlos Monroy '10, data scientist at Rice University's Center for Digital Learning and Scholarship, has been selected to participate in the 2nd Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF) to be held Sept. 21-26, 2014 at the University of Heidelberg in Germany.

Dr. P.K. Imbrie, director of undergraduate academic programs, was invited to testify at the Texas Senate Higher Education Committee’s hearing regarding technology and teacher preparation.

A proposal submitted by Dr. Mladen Kezunovic was selected for seed grant funding from the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) for two years.

Dr. Shuguang (Robert) Cui, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University, was named to Thomson Reuters’ list of “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds: 2014.”

A team of graduate and undergraduate students in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering won second place recently at the American Society of Agricultural & Biological Engineers' Student robotic design competition.

Dr. M. Katherine Banks, vice chancellor and dean of engineering, has appointed Dr. John Hurtado as the senior director for multidisciplinary engineering programs, and Dr. Nancy Amato as the senior director for engineering honors programs.

Dr. M. Katherine Banks, vice chancellor and dean of engineering, has appointed Dr. Dilma Da Silva the head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University.

Cameron Crawford, a sophomore in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University, has been named the recipient of the Texas Armed Services Scholarship from House District 2.

The Zachry Department of Civil Engineering held its first summer camp, Camp BUILD, July 20-25.

Dr. Norris Stubbs, professor in the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering, passed away August 9, 2014. Dr. Stubbs served the department for over 30 years.

Zhaokai Meng, a graduate student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M University, has been awarded a 2014 Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.

Students from the Department of Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University won first place at the Canberra University Video Challenge.

Jana and Terry Leeper endowed the Jana and Terry Leeper '86 Scholarship in computer science and computer engineering.

This past week, six Texas A&M University Computer Science and Engineering students, Coulton Vento, Eleni Mijalis, Bob Timm, Jose Manriquez, Christopher Nolan and Rafael Moreno were accepted to participate in the prestigious hackathon at the University of Pennsylvania called PennApps.

Berna Hascakir, assistant professor in the Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M, was featured in a recent article on thermal recovery by Jennifer Pallanich in the Upstream Technology bi-monthly magazine.

Antiterrorism efforts could receive a major boost from technology developed at Texas A&M University that enables the identification of explosives, biological agents or hazardous chemicals from distances of a half mile and farther.

Friends of Dr. Ron Hart, This past spring Dr. Hart was found to have cancer. After brain surgery and radiation, Dr. Hart is resting at home in College Station.

Two Texas A&M nuclear engineering graduate students won awards at ICONE-22 in Prague, Czech Republic.

In July, NSSPI graduated its first class of students in the Summer Certificate in Nuclear Security Program.

Dr. Brock Faulkner, assistant professor in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, has been selected to receive the 2014 Gale A. Holloway Professional Development Award by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE).

Manit Shah's paper titled "Simulation Analysis of Scintillation in a Nal Detector" was selected as the best student paper for the Nonproliferation and Arms Control Division of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management (INMM) at their annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia in July.

An MRI-guided laser system that allows surgeons to perform brain surgery on tumors and epileptic lesions in the brain is expected to become widely available to patients in need now that the technology has been acquired from Visualase Inc. by the global medical device company Medtronic, Inc., says a biomedical engineering professor from Texas A&M University who co-founded the company responsible for the technology.

Camp SOAR (Summer Opportunities in Aerospace Research) 2014 was hosted by the Department of Aerospace Engineering with the help of The Boeing Company and Rockwell Collins July 20-25, 2014.

Dr. Marcelo Sanchez, associate professor, and Dr. Philip Park, assistant professor, in the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering recently graduated from the 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) ExCEEd (Excellence in Civil Engineering Education) Teaching Workshop.

Ramiro "Ram" Martinez '50 has signed an endowment agreement for the Betty Martinez Excellence Fund for Nuclear Engineering.