The college is pleased to welcome four new faculty members who have recently arrived on campus.

Eric Cochran, a CBE assistant professor, earned his BS in ChE and BA in mathematics at Iowa State in 1998 and his PhD in chemical engineering at the University of Minnesota in 2004. This past year he has been a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara.



Chen-Ching Liu, ECpE professor and Palmer Chair, came to Iowa State from the University of Washington where he served as professor of electrical engineering for 22 years and was an associate dean in the College of Engineering from 2000 to 2005. Liu earned his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.



Raj Raman, an ABE associate professor, earned his BS at the Rochester Institute of Technology and his PhD from Cornell University. He came here from the University of Tennessee where he was associate professor and interim head of the Department of Biosystems Engineering and Soil Science.



Umesh Vaidya, an assistant professor in ECpE, came to Iowa State from the United Technology Research Center in East Hartford, Connecticut, where he was a senior research engineer. He earned his PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2004.

The College of Engineering will be swimming with activity on Saturday, January 21. Sixty teams of 9- to 14-year-old kids from Omaha to Davenport and Sioux City to Ottumwa will converge on Howe and Hoover Halls to compete in the annual FIRST LEGO™ League (FLL) Iowa tournament. In addition, 10 teams of 6- to 9-year-olds will participate in the Junior FLL tournament. This is the fifth year the college has hosted the all-day FLL event. The teams have designed, built, and programmed robots to carry out missions as part of the Ocean Odyssey Challenge. Some 215 volunteers have signed up to make this day a big success. For details, click on See the Program at isufll.org.

Four P&S staff members have been selected to receive CYtation awards in a special ceremony on Friday, January 20, in the President’s Office. These awards recognize individuals who have performed above and beyond the call of duty, done something extraordinarily well, or acted in such a way as to make a very real difference at Iowa State University. Congratulations to Joseph Mesterhazy, ECpE systems support specialist; Jodi Reinhard, ME administrative specialist; Robert Steffes, CTRE program manager; and Beth Weiser, ABE program assistant.