Participants in last year’s FIRST LEGO League Iowa Championship

Howe Hall will be a busy place on Saturday, January 17, when 72 teams of 9- to 14-year-old students arrive on campus to participate in the eighth annual FIRST LEGO League Iowa Championship. This year’s theme is “Climate Connections.” The teams, each with as many as 10 members, will be judged on how well their robots complete a project that asks them to research how climate affects their own communities, create a solution to that problem, and share what they have learned. More than 275 faculty, staff, and student volunteers help to make this event a success.

The competition, which will run from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., is open to the public. Dan Wardell, popular host of Iowa Public Television's Kids Clubhouse, will give a high-energy presentation about imagination and invention at 2 and 2:30 p.m. in the Alliant Energy-Lee Liu Auditorium in Howe Hall. Wardell will also post about his adventures at the FIRST LEGO competition on his blog at www.iptv.org/dantastic.

The Iowa championship is sponsored by the College of Engineering, Rockwell Collins, and private donors. (News release and video preview)


Spring Career Fair is January 27

The College of Engineering Spring Career Fair is Tuesday, January 27, in Hilton Coliseum and the Scheman Building from noon to 6 p.m. More than 280 businesses and organizations are registered to participate. Please encourage your students to attend the fair and begin developing relationships with prospective employers. Faculty assistance in planning flexibility with class schedules both for the career fair on January 27 and January 28, the busiest interview day for engineering students, would be appreciated.

Many of the employer representatives who will be in attendance at the career fair are alums who would like to visit with faculty and staff. Plan now to attend the fair and/or the social at the conclusion of the fair from 6 to 7 p.m. in Hilton Coliseum. If you have questions, contact Engineering Career Services at ecs@iastate.edu or 294-3553 or visit the Spring Career Fair Web site. The career fair co-chairs are Charlotte Butler, AerE4, and Bill Whitford, ME3.

Graduate students honored

Nine College of Engineering graduate students received fall 2008 Teaching or Research Excellence Awards from the Iowa State University Graduate College.

The research excellence awardees are Jiang Lin, ECpE; Melissa Montalbo-Lomboy, ABE; Harold Salazar, ECpE; Xia Sheng, MSE; Prachand Shrestha, CCEE; Kanaga Subramanian, ME; and Linfeng Zhang, ECpE.

The teaching excellence awardees are Denis Dorozhkin, ME; and Christopher Hunt, IMSE.

Come “twitter” with us

The College of Engineering has entered the world of social networking with a twitter site. It provides a great opportunity for direct interaction between students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

Twitter is a free service, perfect for quickly sending out information. Twitter posts (tweets) are limited to 140 characters or less. Check out www.twitter.com/ISU_CoE for news updates, upcoming events, job and internship postings, and more. Follow ISU_CoE on twitter, and we will follow you in return and re-tweet any interesting tidbits we see crossing the feed. For the twilliterate of you, i.e. if you don’t want to register for your own free twitter account, you can submit your news, links, events, and job/internship postings by e-mailing ballstad@iastate.edu.

Two minutes with…

Song-Charng Kong, ME assistant professor, is the most recent engineering faculty member to be featured on the Iowa State University homepage Two minutes with.... Check it out to learn about Kong’s research focused on improving internal combustion engines.

The College of Engineering homepage also has a Two minutes with… feature that currently highlights Lizhi Wang, IMSE assistant professor, and his research aimed at encouraging people to use green technologies.

ADVANCE presentation and discussion planned

Sharon Bird, ISU ADVANCE research director, will present, “ISU ADVANCE Collaborative Transformation (CT): Enhancing the Academic Work Environment,” on Wednesday, January 28, 3–4:30 p.m. in 1204 Kildee. A central component of the ISU ADVANCE Program, the CT project helps faculty within focal science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) departments to identify potential barriers to faculty success and develop departmental strategies to support excellence and diversity. A central objective is to ensure that department work environments support the recruitment, retention, and promotion of outstanding faculty.

This presentation will begin with a brief overview of departmental transformation efforts and accomplishments in three focal STEM departments. Following the overview, a panel composed of the three ISU ADVANCE Professors—Kristen Constant, Materials Science and Engineering; Fred Janzen, Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology; and Jo Anne Powell-Coffman, Genetics, Development and Cell Biology—who helped guide transformation efforts in the three focal STEM departments will engage in interactive dialogue with audience members.

Mark your calendars!

January 17—FIRST LEGO League Championship Howe Hall, 9 a.m.–5:30 p.m.

January 27—College of Engineering Spring Career Fair, noon–6 p.m., Hilton Coliseum and Scheman Building; social for employers, faculty, and staff, 6:15–7 p.m., Hilton Coliseum

January 28—ISU ADVANCE Collaborative Transformation: Enhancing the Academic Work Environment presentation and panel discussion, 3–4:30 p.m., 1204 Kildee Hall

January 29—“Reducing energy demand through conservation and increased efficiency,” by Alan K. Meier, senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Energy Efficiency Center, University of California, Davis, as part of the Engineering Policy and Leadership Institute thematic year, Energy Security and Sustainability, 7–9 p.m., Howe Hall Alliant Energy-Lee Liu Auditorium

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 515 294-8787.


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