Volume 5, Number 5, February, 2009

Welcome to Ahoya! Engineers - Marquette University's College of Engineering e-Newsletter for alumnae, alumni, students and their families, faculty, staff, and MU friends. We want you to know what’s happening in your College of Engineering. This newsletter will be published periodically to share our accomplishments, milestones and activities.

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Supporting World Health. On January 24th and 28th more than sixty of your engineering students, in conjunction with the Marquette student chapters of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) and Engineers Without Borders (EWB), assembled defibrillator battery testing kits that will be used in hospitals in developing countries.  These kits will be distributed by Engineering World Health (EWH), a charitable organization founded to harness the resources of collegiate engineering programs and professional engineers for the improvement of conditions at hospitals in developing countries.

Forty unassembled kits were purchased for Marquette by Alpha Source, a Milwaukee based global distributer of new and replacement medical devices.  The assembled kits will be used to test the electrical charge levels of defibrillators.

In addition to these volunteer efforts, all freshman Biomedical Engineering students are also building these kits as part of their introduction course.  They devoted two weeks of their scheduled labs to soldering practice and then assembling and testing the devices.

All student participants gained basic soldering and electrical circuit experience and just as importantly, learned to serve the global community.  BMES president Kevin Vincent summed up these experiences by saying, “We are excited to collaborate with Alpha Source on a project that allows us to develop our engineering skills and make a difference.”      

Lead Picture: One of the teams beginning the assembly process. 

Soldering a component to the defibrillator testing circuit – delicate work

How many engineers does it take to screw on a box top??

Celebrate Valentine's Day with Your Fellow Alumni.

St. John’s wears RED
Marquette wears BLUE
Spend Valentine’s Day with US
As we cheer on MU!

The College of Engineering Alumni Association (COEAA) invites you to the Marquette vs. St. John’s game on Valentine’s Day - Saturday, February 14, 2009 - for its annual Auction & Basketball Game event. Join us for an opportunity to meet, greet, and outbid fellow alumni, with auction proceeds benefiting the College of Engineering Endowed Scholarship Fund.

Afterwards, cheer on the Golden Eagles as they take on the St. John’s Red Storm. Let’s show St. John’s that “We Are Marquette!” Tickets are limited. Click here for complete details and online registration, please visit or call 414-288-8440.

National Recognition for Bridge Design. What began as an endeavor to improve the day-to-day life of a rural community in Guatemala resulted in national acknowledgment for the completed project.

A Civil Engineering Senior Design project has been nominated as one of only six finalists for a very prestigious national award.  The Rio Motagua Bridge, designed by 2005 graduates Andy Thorson, James Ritter, Mollie Bednarowski and Paul Silva has been nominated for the Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award (OCEA) by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). 

Mentors for the design project were Mike Paddock, PE, PS and Mark Mada, PE from CH2M Hill along with Kevin Hagen, PE from GRAEF, with the project’s major donors being CH2M Hill and the Southminster Presbyterian Church in Waukesha, WI.

 Previously, only a pedestrian bridge existed at the narrowest point of the Motagua River in La Garrucha, Guatemala.  During the rainy season the river flow obstructed passage on the bridge. Now the new 67 foot long concrete T-beam bridge, built by Engineers Without Borders (including Marquette students), is giving residents of the area better access to a variety of resources, including bus routes to schools and to medical facilities.

The ASCE annually recognizes an exemplary civil engineering project as the OCEA.  Established in 1960, this prestigious award honors the project that best illustrates superior civil engineering skills and represents a significant contribution to civil engineering progress and society.  Many outstanding projects have previously been awarded the OCEA, including the Quadracci Pavilion addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum, designed by architect Santiago Calatrava.

This the first student design project from a university to receive this national nomination.

Deck pour

The completed Rio Motagua Bridge

Award for Teaching Excellence. Dr. Scott Goldsborough, Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has recently been named a recipient of the Society of Automotive Engineers International Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award.  The award, established in 1953, recognizes outstanding engineering educators and offers them the opportunity to meet and exchange views with practicing engineers at the annual SAE World Congress.  Recipients are selected on the basis of their academic training, contributions to teaching and research, and participation in extracurricular student activities.  Faculty must have served for at least three, but less than ten years.

Dr. Goldsborough is also a past recipient of SAE’s prestigious Harry L. Horning Memorial Award which honors outstanding research in the area of mutual adaptation of fuels and internal combustion (IC) engines.  This recent accolade thus makes him one of only four individuals ever to have received both awards.

Joining Marquette in the fall of 2003, Dr. Goldsborough conducts research focused on internal combustion engine efficiency and emissions, including improved chemical kinetic models for conventional and alternative fuels, simulation of IC engine processes and the development of novel IC engine configurations.  He also is a co-director of the College of Engineering’s NSF-sponsored Cluster Computing Facility.

In addition to his teaching and research activities, Dr. Goldsborough is the faculty advisor for Marquette’s Human Powered Vehicle design and race teams.  These student teams have consistently placed well at ASME’s National Competition, with the 2007-8 team finishing 3rd overall in the East Coast Division.

Dr. Goldsborough joins fellow Marquette Teetor award recipients Drs. Jon Borg, Mark Nagurka and Joseph Schimmels (Mechanical Engineering) and Dr. Gerald Harris (Biomedical Engineering), demonstrating a commitment to excellence in higher education.

Last Call for Nominations! As Marquette College of Engineering marks its Centennial Year (1908-2008) we wish to uniquely honor our distinguished alumni, the leading lights who transform technology, industry, education and everyday life through advances, and through service and leadership.

We invite you to nominate Luminaries of Marquette Engineering

Eligibility

• Marquette alumni – living or deceased

• Innovators and achievers in the field of engineering, technology and industry

A committee comprised of Marquette University faculty and administrators will select final candidates, and the naming of the Luminaries of Marquette Engineering will be recognized in the Fall of 2009 as we enter the next 100 years of the College of Engineering at Marquette University.

Please click here for an online nomination form or call 1-800-344-7544 to nominate a Marquette Engineering Luminary by March 1, 2009. 

Experiencing Research Abroad. Michael V. Johnson, a Master’s degree student in Mechanical Engineering, recently returned from an NSF-sponsored, 6-month stay at the National University of Ireland Galway’s Combustion Chemistry Center.

Mike and John Bustamante (Mechanical Engineering ’08 and currently a PhD student at Georgia Tech), conducted research this past summer and fall in the Center with the objective to better understand the ignition characteristics of conventional and bio-derived fuels.  They worked primarily with iso-octane and propanol, model fuels for gasoline and second-generation alcohols.  Detailed chemical descriptions of how these fuels decompose and oxidize in engine-relevant environments are critically needed to develop advanced fuel formulations and engine designs that will enable future efficiency, emission and sustainability targets to be met.

In addition to their work in the lab, Mike and John also found time to experience and enjoy authentic Irish food, drink, culture and history.

Mike Johnson		John Bustamente

Calling for Alumni Volunteers! Each spring, local COE alumni gather to make telephone calls on behalf of Marquette University’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions. They call students who have been accepted to Marquette, but who have not yet committed to attend the university and to answer any questions that they may have. These phone calls are beneficial for both recruiting and retaining COE students.

Are you interested in joining them?  They will be making calls on February 4, 10, and 17th between 5:30 pm and 8 pm. Each evening begins with a light dinner of sandwiches, chips and cookies and then the calling begins.  If you would like to help make these phone calls, please e-mail Jim Shaw, Engineering ‘63 to indicate your date(s) of preference. After you respond, you will receive a confirmation email with further details.

Help With COE Open House. Your College of Engineering will soon be hosting its annual Scholarship Competition and Open House for prospective incoming freshmen, and we are asking for alumni assistance during two important days.

On Friday, February 20th from 5:30 pm to 8 pm, alumni volunteers are invited to participate in an informal Fish Fry on campus to visit with prospective students and their parents and share their Marquette University experiences.

On Saturday, February 21st from 10:30 am to 2 pm, volunteers are needed to staff the alumni information table at Open House and to direct parents and students to the various displays.

Rube Goldberg Anyone? And finally on Saturday, February 27th from 10 am to 2 pm, alumni volunteers are needed at Discovery World to serve as judges for the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest.

If you’d like to help at the Open House and/or Rube Goldberg events, please email Kelly Strifling, Engineering ’99 and ’06, to indicate your date(s) of preference. After you respond, you will receive a confirmation email with further details.

February is going to be a very busy month!

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