September 2010 issue:
- From the dean
- First day of school
- Civil engineering students in service in Guatemala
- Engineering alumni return
- Biomedical engineering student receives award
- Award named for Widera
- Teachers attend fluid dynamics workshop
- Crovetti designs concrete test
- Construction update
- College hosts two-course on wastewater treatment and renewable energy
- Biomedical engineering faculty receive grants
- Help spread the news
From the dean
Bob Bishop
OPUS Dean of Engineering
Greetings:
We live in a rapidly changing and uncertain world. The grand challenges facing us—energy, water, food, health, environment, education—will most certainly be resolved with noteworthy contributions from engineers. I believe it is mission critical for us in the Marquette University College of Engineering to play a significant role in transformative education and research to make the world a safer and more just place.
There are global forces at work that are driving the direction of engineering education. We should not be satisfied with merely reacting to external pressures - but rather endeavor to command our own direction consistent with the Marquette mission. We are compelled to understand and control as best we can the direction of higher education to produce outcomes that meet our mission as a premier college of engineering. To this end, I envision an engineering education landscape where the boundaries between traditional departmental divisions are blurred. I imagine a landscape where the educational obstacles imposed by historical customs of separating students in various disciplines are removed. Revolutions in educational thinking and practice often unfold according to natural time constants that are longer than we can afford to wait this time around. Our journey begins with a first step. If that step is bold, national attention will follow. The possibilities are vast. At Marquette , beginning under the leadership of former Dean Stan Jaskolski, we have embarked on a campaign to create the Discovery Learning Complex.
This is an exciting time for us at Marquette. Indeed, we have decided as a college of engineering to pursue solutions to the grand challenges. The near-term challenge is to complete the Discovery Learning Complex. In fact, Phase I is rising out of the ground at the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and 16th Street as you're reading this note. We are on schedule, but there is much, much left to do to complete the building project. Over the course of the upcoming year, you will hear more about the Discovery Learning Complex and the strategy for completion.
We also are thinking creatively about how to best craft a teaching and research environment within the Discovery Learning Complex. According to a report of the National Advisory Council, the curriculum must embody "a systems perspective,” a "multi-disciplinary perspective", and an "integration of knowledge.” Most students entering our engineering programs have never rebuilt a car engine, repaired an appliance, or even disassembled a machine of one sort or another. Some have tinkered with small computers, but that is usually limited to installing parts. This lack of prior hands-on experience presents faculty with a demanding challenge in engineering education. Engineering laboratories remain largely disconnected from today’s students who lack instinctive understanding of how things work. At the same time, the engineering experience outside academia is rapidly becoming dominated by multi-disciplinary teams working together on projects from concept to end product. The industrial experience should be mirrored in the university environment whenever it complements the learning process. Fortunately, students want to work together to understand the real-world of engineering while they are in college. This is the perfect time to strive to provide a more complete educational experience for Marquette engineering students. The grand challenges require an integrated approach to problem solving. Industry is clamoring for students better prepared to address the global challenges, and students want to work collaboratively.
The upcoming academic year will be full of opportunities for participation. Please join us.
Bob Bishop
OPUS Dean of Engineering
The first day of school
We welcome 285 incoming freshmen - the class of 2014- to the College of Engineering.
The next seven days bring lots of activity and excitement to campus. Wednesday, August 25 new and transfer students begin to move into residence halls. Returning students move in Friday. The coming weekend is filled with special events including the Mass of the Holy Spirit and the Welcome Pack Picnic. Classes for the 2010-11 academic year begin on Monday, August 30.
Best wishes for an outstanding year.Civil engineering students in service in Guatemala
Another in our series of articles on engineering students in service to others . . .
In early 2010, engineering senior design team members Steve Graziano, Benjie Hayek, Shea Royal, Adrianna Stanley and Patric Tuuk packed their bags and headed to Guatemala to build a bridge in Joyabaj. Their project, the Rio Chiquito Bridge will serve as a link between Joyabaj and the 17 outlying communities in the region help more than 20,000 people. The new bridge will make access to medical facilities, schools and markets easier and much safer for all those who need to cross the extremely polluted Chiquito River.
Friends from Joyabaj, Guatemala
A 60-year-old span exists over the river. The old bridge is narrow – barely 9 feet wide – and crossing is treacherous, especially when the river basin overfills during the rainy season.
Existing bridge at Joyabaj, Guatemala
A team of colleagues from Engineers Without Borders, Wisconsin Professional Partners and International Operating Engineers Local 139 joined the senior design students to plan and execute the project, which involved all major disciplines of civil engineering. Financial support came from International Operating Engineers Local 139, Yash Wadhwa, the North Shore Rotary Club and Payne & Dolan, Inc. Students were required by their mentor, Mike Paddock of CH2MHill, to explore the environmental, structural, geotechnical, transportation and construction management requirements just like they would encouncter in a real-world project of this size. It should be completed in early 2011.
Construction of new bridge at Joyabaj, Guatemala
Engineering alumni return
Alumni Reunion Weekend was held in late July and provided a great opportunity for engineering alumni to greet old friends, meet our new dean and see the construction of the Discovery Learning Complex.
OPUS Dean Bob Bishop was greeted warmly by engineering fraternities, Sigma Phi Delta and Triangle. Each fraternity planned a casual barbecue at its chapter house for alumni, fraternity brothers and friends. Bishop addressed both groups and was able to spend time visiting with them. In turn they introduced him to “…nuts, bolts, screws, gears…rah, rah engineers, three cheers, free beers… rah, rah engineers!” - the cheer that sets Marquette engineers apart from all other engineers.
Saturday 's College of Engineering open house drew a crowd of nearly 70 alumni and friends. After visitors listened to remarks from Bishop and reminisced in the halls of Haggerty, they moved across the street to the site of the new Discovery Learning Complex. Dr. Mark Federle, McShane Chair in Construction Engineering and Management, gave a brief overview and discussed the current status of the project. Stay up to date.
The entire weekend provided many opportunities for alumni to renew ties with Marquette and welcome Bishop into the Marquette engineering family.
Biomedical engineering student receives award
Tim Gundert, a five-year B.S./M.S. program student in biomedical engineering, took second place in the Master's Student Paper Competition of the 2010 ASME Summer Bioengineering Conference for his poster Evaluation of cerebral aneurysm stent performance in a subject-specific computational model. The poster was presented in the Solid Mechanics, Design and Rehabilitation Engineering category. Dr. John LaDisa, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, co-authored the poster.
Award named for Widera
The annual outstanding research paper award for the Journal of Pressure Vessel Technology - transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers - will now be known as the G.E.O. Widera Outstanding Paper Award.
The naming of the award honors Dr. Widera’s 16 years of service as editor of JPVT.Teachers attend fluid dynamics workshop
In early August 21 middle school and high school science educators participated in the Fluid Dynamics Workshop for Teachers at the college, lead by jack Samuelson, coordinator for outreach education. Sponsored by the National Fluid Power Association Foundation, the five-hour event gave teachers with strategies and materials to incorporate fluid dynamics and fluid power activities into their curriculum by enhancing their understanding of how fluids behave and the applications of fluid power (hydraulics and pneumatics) in daily life.
Most participants were from the Milwaukee area, but teachers also came from the Fox Valley, Mount Horeb, Plymouth, Rio and Wausau.
Each year, the National Fluid Power Association Fluid Power Challengeengages eigth-grade students in an engineering problem-solving activity using fluid power. The challenge can be held as an event competition at schools, universities or fluid power companies. To find out more, including how to sponsor a challenge in your area, please contact Program manager Carrie Tatman Schwartz, at ctschwartz@nfpa.com, or call (414)-778-3347.
Crovetti designs concrete test
Dr. Jim Crovetti, associate professor of civil engineering, designed and installed two pavement demonstration/test sections in the new Michigan Avenue Mall, between the Rec Center and the Discovery Learning Complex.
One demonstration section incorporates a pervious concrete pavement over a thick storm water detention layer. This section was designed to illustrate the benefits of underground detention systems for managing and cleansing storm water in urban environments. The second test section incorporates a continuously reinforced concrete pavement over a traditional aggregate base layer. This CRCP section was designed with a crack initiation system patented by alumnus Thomas Matousek, Eng ’73. The test sections were constructed with financial and in-kind support from OPUS North, Stark Asphalt, Arrow Crete, Schmitz Ready Mix, Meyer Materials, Matousek and the Wisconsin Concrete Pavement Association. For more information contact Crovetti at (414) 288-7382.
Construction of pervious concrete pavement sections
Steel layout for continuously reinforced concrete pavement (CRCP) section
College hosts two-day course on water treatment and renewable energy
Wastewater treatment and energy professionals from around the country will visit the college for a two-day course on anaerobic treatment of industrial waste September 15 and 16. The program will feature Rene Moletta, a research director at the French National Institute for Agriculture Research. Dr. Daniel Zitomer, professor of Civil, Construction and Environmental engineering and director of the college’s Water Quality Center, has organized the program the past seven years, which has attracted participants from Nestlé, Coca-Cola, the Packaging Corporation of America and other industries. Registration and schedule details are available at http://www.marquette.edu/ANT.
Construction update
Placement of the last piece of structural steel – a milestone in the construction of Phase I of the new Discovery Learning Complex - took place August 5.
The construction update page includes a time lapse video and slideshow, which are updated weekly.
Biomedical engineering faculty receive grants
Dr. Taly Gilat-Schmidt, assistant of professor biomedical engineering, received a $366,277 grant from the National Institutes of Health for “Innovative Reconstruction Algorithms for Undersampled SPECT.” Single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) provides noninvasive images of the in vivo distribution of radiotracer molecules. The proposed research is aiming to enable dynamic images of tracer uptake (~ 1 second per image) with a minimal number of cameras. The kinetic parameters that can be estimated from dynamic studies provide important information about physiological mechanisms and disease states.
The proposed project will develop a novel optimization-based reconstruction framework for SPECT imaging, drawing on compressed sensing theory. The proposed algorithms will be studied through simulations, phantom experiments, and animal data obtained from a three-camera small-animal SPECT system under construction. The project is in collaboration with Dr. Anne Clough Department of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science); Dr. Emil Sidky (Department of Radiology, at the University of Chicago); and the Pulmonary Physiology and Research Laboratory at the Zablocki VA Medical Center, where the reconstructed dynamic data will be used to develop tracers for diagnosing lung injury and disease. Successful completion of the project will result in a novel reconstruction approach that will benefit numerous SPECT applications, including cardiac and oncology studies.
Dr. Gerald Harris, professor of biomedical engineering and director of the Orthopaedic and Rehabilitation Engineering Center was awarded a five-year grant from the National Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research for Advanced Rehabilitation Research Training in Pediatric to Adult Transition. The award will fund post-doctoral fellows - both Ph.D.s and M.D.s - to become career researchers.
The overall goal of the program is to develop in-depth expertise, enthusiasm and productivity in rehabilitation research with experience in community-based research settings and with organizations representing individuals with disabilities. The program is structured to support post-doctoral engineers, physicians, physical therapists and psychologists who seek advanced rehabilitation research training. Qualified trainees are enrolled in the program for 24 to 36 months.
Active contribution and strong participation in research resides at the core of this ARRT program. Three research areas support opportunities for advanced, career oriented contributions to the field of pediatric to adult transition. The RAs are Function and Outcomes Assessment, Biomaterials and Skeletal Biology and Motion and Mobility. A team of mentors with qualifications and existing funded programs specific to each of the RAs will support candidates entering the program to enhance their current skill and offer additional high-level training and experience.
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