August 2017

The recent work of Dr. Akhilesh Gaharwar, “Vacancy-Driven Gelation Using Defect-Rich Nanoassemblies of 2-D Transition Metal Dichalcogenides and Polymeric Binder for Biomedical Applications,” has shown some promising results, taking a new approach of forming synthetic gel-like environments to house human cells.

Dr. Kristen Maitland, associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M University, has been elected to her second three-year term on the board of directors for SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. Maryellen Giger, a Hagler Fellow at Texas A&M and the A.N. Pritzker Professor of Radiology at the University of Chicago, has been elected to serve as president of SPIE in 2018.

A recent study has added a new dimension to the controversial decision to inject large amounts of chemical dispersants immediately above the crippled oil well at the seafloor during the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010. The dispersants may have significantly reduced the amount of harmful gases in the air at the sea surface—reducing health risks for emergency responders and allowing them to keep working to stop the uncontrolled spill and clean up the spilled oil sooner.

Three petroleum engineering graduate students from Texas A&M University won the 2017 Drillbotics competition when they designed and built a miniature automated drilling rig that uses sensors and computer logistics to drill a vertical well in a test formation of unknown composition without any human intervention.

When one hears the words “rocket scientist,” a certain image often comes to mind — that of an older man in a white lab coat, beaker in hand. But it’s 2017, and that stereotype is fading away thanks to people like Shayla Rivera. Rivera, or as her name appears on caller ID “the funny rocket scientist,” is an aerospace engineer, motivational speaker and standup comedian. She’s also a professor of engineering practice and the new director of Texas A&M’s ENGR[x] .

A three-year, $242,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will allow Dr. Moble Benedict, assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University, to investigate the flight dynamics and control of hover-capable small-scale flapping wing robots.

A research team with the Department of Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University, in collaboration with the South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Company (STPNOC), has solved Generic Safety Issue (GSI) - 191, a problem resulting from a loss of coolant accident in a nuclear reactor, which can cause debris to be generated and potentially impact the performance of the safety system.

The energy was high in the Bethancourt Ballroom in the Memorial Student Center on the Texas A&M University campus last week as 110 incoming engineering students and their families celebrated the culmination of the Engineering Summer Bridge Program.

Alfredo Costilla-Reyes, a graduate student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has been named the 2017-18 Kirchner Food Fellow.

Two Texas A&M University engineering students won an award for their paper on additive manufacturing at the Society of Manufacturing Engineers’ (SME) 2017 Digital Manufacturing Challenge.

Dr. Radu Stoleru, professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University, and his collaborators have proposed a way to enhance the resilience of public safety mission critical systems and services in the face of connectivity challenges.

Arthur "Artie" McFerrin Jr. ’65 passed away on Tuesday, Aug. 8. McFerrin has been a longtime supporter of the chemical engineering department, which bears his name, and Texas A&M University as a whole.

Dr. Robin Murphy, Raytheon Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University, was invited to give an inspirational talk at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Women in Engineering International Leadership Conference (WIE ILC) in San José, California, in May.

Jose Wippold, a student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M University, has been selected to be the 2017 recipient for the Science, Mathematics & Research for Transformation (SMART) Fellowship with the Department of Defense (DoD).

One of the latest trends is to reduce wired communication and transfers by updating systems to wireless capabilities. Industries embracing this shift include energy, technology, subsea communication and aviation. Dr. David Redman and a team of researchers from the Aerospace Vehicle Systems Institute (AVSI) in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University have worked over the last 10 years to make this technology possible.

The research of Dr. Akhilesh Gaharwar, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M University, has been featured in Advanced Materials for his work in developing new methods to form synthetic gel-like environments for biomedical applications.

Sixteen students from the College of Engineering at Texas A&M University participated in the 2017 Global Grand Challenges Summit held July 18-20 at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Two proposals by researchers in the Texas A&M University College of Engineering received grants from the U.S. Department of Energy‘s (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) University Coalition for Fossil Energy Research (UCFER) program.

Dr. Robert E. Skelton, TEES Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University, received the IFAC Fellow Award from the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) at the IFAC 2017 World Congress in Toulouse, France.

Dr. Ramesh Talreja, Tenneco Professor of Engineering in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University, has been selected to receive the 2017 Outstanding Research Award in Composites from the American Society for Composites (ASC).

Dr. Bonnie J. Dunbar, TEES Distinguished Research Professor, and three students from her Aerospace Human Systems Laboratory attended the 47th International Conference on Environmental Systems (ICES 2017) in Charleston, South Carolina.

Dr. Osman Anderoglu ’10, a graduate of the materials science and engineering program at Texas A&M University, has become a faculty member in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of New Mexico.

Most college students view an ideal summer as one spent on a sunbaked beach, but Texas A&M University nuclear engineering student Zachary Hardy is under a different kind of heat in New Mexico, working alongside a research team at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to try to validate a computational model for electrostatic discharge.

Dr. Darren Hartl, assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Dr. Ibrahim Karaman, department head and professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Texas A&M, have received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for nearly $400,000 to investigate the feasibility of embedding stress-sensitive active material particles into structural components to identify cracks the moment they occur.

Dr. Ali Mostafavi, assistant professor in the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering at Texas A&M University, was awarded an Early-Career Research Fellowship from the National Academies’ Gulf Research Program (GRP).