ISU College of Engineering

College of Engineering E-News

Alum begins work on the space station

Clay Anderson, the first Iowa State alum to become an astronaut, arrived on the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday. He traveled to the ISS via space shuttle Atlantis, which launched from Kennedy Space Center last Friday night. Anderson, who earned his MS in aerospace engineering in 1983, will live and work on the ISS for five months. Activities on the ISS can be followed at NASA’s Space Station.

Aluru honored for corn genome work

The Computerworld Honors Program named Srinivas Aluru, Stanley Chair in Interdisciplinary Engineering and ECpE professor, a 2007 Laureate during the 19th Annual Laureates Medal Ceremony and Gala Awards Evening in Washington, D.C., on June 4. The awards honor individuals and organizations that have used information technology to benefit society. Aluru was recognized for his work developing software technology that is helping researchers assemble and analyze the corn genome. (News release)

Faculty assume named professorships

Stuart Birrell, ABE associate professor, has been named to fill a new professorship created by Jon and Marcia Kinzenbaw, the founders and owners of KINZE Manufacturing Inc. in Williamsburg, Iowa. (Birrell news release)

David White, CCEE associate professor, has been named the inaugural recipient of the Waldo W. Wegner Professorship in Civil Engineering. (White news release)

Miller Fellowships support student learning

College of Engineering faculty authored or co-authored three winning proposals for 2007–2008 Miller Faculty Fellowships. These fellowships provide faculty opportunities to enhance their scholarly work in undergraduate academic programs and to enhance student learning.

The projects and authors are Developing the New Professional: Connecting Student Learning and the Workplace, by Steven K. Mickelson and Tom Brumm, ABE, with faculty from food science and human nutrition, English, and the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching; Improving Student Problem Formulation Skills through Scaffolding, by John Jackman and Sarah M. Ryan, IMSE, with faculty from curriculum and instruction and physics and astronomy; and Utilization of the Process Tracing Methodology to Directly Assess Student Competency in ‘Customer Focus’, by Nir Keren, Steven A. Freeman, and Steven K. Mickelson, ABE.

Thorland-Oster named College Adviser of the Year

The University Academic Advising Committee announced the recipients of the 2006-2007 Adviser of the Year Awards recently. Congratulations to Vicky Thorland-Oster, ECpE, the College of Engineering winner. A display in the Memorial Union honors the winning advisers from each college along with two university award recipients.

VRAC hosts interns

Fifteen undergraduates are participating in the 10-week Summer Program for Interdisciplinary Research and Education—Emerging Interface Technologies (SPIRE-EIT) at VRAC. The interns come from universities across the country—including Arizona, Clemson, Drake, Evansville, Harvard, Iowa State, Jackson State, Maryland, Macalester, Truman State, and West Virginia—to learn about graduate school and research, and to explore interface technologies. In addition to lectures and classroom activities, the interns serve on an interdisciplinary research team to develop a project incorporating interactive technology. The projects will be presented at a special program on August 4. Detailed information about the program is online.

SPIRE-EIT interns with (from front) Jim Oliver, program director, and graduate students Eva Tao and Chad Kilgore.

SPIRE-EIT is funded by NSF with support from the College of Engineering, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Graduate College, and Programs for Women in Science and Engineering. Jim Oliver is project director and graduate students Eva Tao and Chad Kilgore are program mentors.

New department chairs hired

The College of Engineering has announced the hiring of two new department chairs. Gary Mirka will assume his new role as IMSE chair on July 1. He is coming to Iowa State from North Carolina State University. Learn more about Mirka in the July E-News. Jonathan Wickert is the new ME chair and will begin his appointment August 1. Wickert, who has been at Carnegie Mellon University since 1990, will be introduced in the August E-News.

Rolls-Royce acquires invention rights

From left, Daniel Sordelet and Brian Gleeson

Rolls-Royce Corp. has acquired exclusive rights to use a coating invented by Iowa State University and Ames Laboratory researchers that helps turbine blades withstand the intensive heat in turbine engines. Brian Gleeson, the Alan and Julie Renken Professor in Materials Science and Engineering and a scientist with Ames Laboratory, and Daniel Sordelet, a senior scientist and group leader with Ames Laboratory, won an R&D 100 award for their invention in 2005. (News release)

Graduate students honored

Sixteen College of Engineering graduate students received spring 2007 Teaching and Research Excellence Awards. Four students were inadvertently omitted in the list published in the May 3 E-News. Congratulations to Teaching Excellence winners Jason Busch, AerE, and Chao-Jung Chen, IMSE; and Research Excellence winners Ying Liu, ChE, and Anindya Sengupta, AerE.


	E-News is distributed by Engineering Communications and Marketing. If you have questions or news items to suggest, please contact Mary Jo Glanville at mglanvil@iastate.edu or call 4-8787. 104 Marston Hall, Ames, IA 5001, (515) 294-5933, info@eng.iastate.edu Copyright © 2004, Iowa State University of Science and Technology. All rights reserved.