Volume 5, Number 1, October, 2008
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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Fall Semester Gains Momentum. There’s a fall tinge in the air as your students are busy attending classes, studying for tests and writing lab reports. It’s hard to believe, but we’re almost half way through fall semester and everyone is counting the days to mid-semester break (a welcome four-day weekend for both faculty and students beginning on October 16th).
Your college wishes you an enjoyable and restful “mini vacation” from the lectures and books, as you kick back and rejuvenate yourselves for the remainder of the semester.
Engineers in Action! Alumni Who Led Marquette Interchange Project Featured on New Web Site. What do you get when you cross 120 incoming freshman engineering majors + eight-year-olds who love engineering + alumni who helped lead the state’s largest transportation construction project + a dean who envisions a game-changing college?
With a proposed new facility, initiatives to increase the pipeline of future engineers and unprecedented momentum, your college is offering a new Web page to feature news and activities. Features include:
- A snapshot of the planned new engineering facility
- A video series with a behind-the-scenes look at the Marquette Interchange, summer academies in Haggerty Hall introducing engineering to kids as young as six (think building robots, rockets, bridges, towers and other fun stuff) and an innovative program inviting freshman engineering majors to campus for a 3-day sneak peek at how their engineering education can impact societies worldwide
- Stories in the college that are garnering media attention
Visit the new Marquette Engineering on a Mission Web page.
As always, we welcome your feedback regarding our bold vision for the college, our new Web site or these videos!
We're changing the game at Marquette engineering and we know we can count on your help.
Don Reinbold, ’64, project development chief of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation,
and other College of Engineering alumni offer a behind-the-scenes look at the
Marquette Interchange project in a video titled Marquette in Milwaukee
Engineering Outreach Hosts Meetings for Science Educators. This month your college’s Engineering Outreach activities included hosting two groups of science educators on campus. On October 1st, the Milwaukee Area Physics Sharing (MAPS) group held its fall meeting in Haggerty Engineering, with 22 members in attendance. MAPS members are physics educators who come from school districts and universities throughout the M-7 region. M7 is a regional, cooperative development platform comprised of 7 counties (Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington, Racine, Kenosha and Walworth) in southeastern Wisconsin. At the meeting, attendees shared new ideas, teaching methods, activities and gadgets they have successfully implemented in their classrooms. In addition, four of your engineering students provided the educators with advice on how to counsel high school students on careers in engineering.
On October 7th, 23 members of the Wisconsin Science Educators Leadership Association (WSELA) attended their fall meeting in the AMU. WSELA is comprised of leaders in science education from universities and school districts throughout the state. Members shared information on new initiatives in science education, as well as brainstorming solutions to the modern problems faced by K-16 science educators. In addition, WSELA acts in an advisory capacity to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and the Wisconsin Society of Science Teachers.
By hosting these meetings, your College is pleased to be an integral part of STEM education and activities throughout the state and looks forward to continuing our efforts in these areas.
Kuemmel's Contributions Acknowledged . Mr. David Kuemmel, Adjunct Professor in the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, was awarded the Theodore M. Matson Memorial Award at the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) 2008 Annual Meeting and Exhibit, which was held August 17–20, 2008 in Anaheim, CA. This award has been presented annually since 1957 and recognizes outstanding contributions in the field of traffic engineering. Throughout his career, Dave has demonstrated a strong personal commitment to the advancement of the transportation profession, accomplishing this through his position in the public sector, as an educator and in the areas of research and development.
Dave is a civil engineering graduate of Marquette University and received his master’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Wisconsin. He is a registered engineer in the state of Wisconsin; a fellow of both the American Society of Civil Engineers and ITE; a member of the National Society of Professional Engineers and the American Public Works Association; and a life member of the Engineers and Scientists of Milwaukee.
As a public sector practitioner, Dave initiated his career with the City of Milwaukee as a civil engineer addressing roadway design and construction, traffic transportation planning, and operations and management. He ultimately served as the Commissioner of Public Works from 1983 through 1988.
As an educator, he joined the civil engineering faculty here at Marquette in 1989 as an assistant professor, where he taught transportation-related courses for 15 years and retired as an adjunct professor in 2004. During this period, he also started the Center for Highway and Traffic Engineering (now the Transportation Research Center), where he served as director until 1995.
Dave has been recognized for his research in improving the visibility of work zone signs, the safety implications of applying snow and ice control products at the right time to reduce accidents and the texturing of Portland Cement Concrete (PCC) pavements to reduce highway noise. He has also served on numerous technical advisory committees addressing regional land use as related to transportation planning. His most recent contribution to the profession has been providing technical input to the updating of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) reference, addressing signalization affecting vision-impaired pedestrians and their overall mobility.
National Scholarship Awarded. Michael Denk, a senior in Mechanical Engineering, has been notified that he is one of only two students nationally to receive a $5000 ASCO Numatics Scholarship. This merit-based scholarship was awarded on Mike’s potential for leadership and for making a significant contribution to the engineering, instrumentation, systems and automation professions.
ASCO, a division of Emerson Industrial Automation, has been the world’s leading manufacturer of comprehensive flow control and pneumatics and its scholarship program is aimed at rewarding exceptional students pursuing careers in manufacturing and processing engineering.
Mike will receive his award at the ISA (automation) Exposition on October 14th at the Reliant Center in Houston.
Marquette Engineering Luminaries. As your College marks its Centennial Year (1908 – 2008) we wish to uniquely honor our distinguished alumni, the leading lights who have transformed technology, industry, education and everyday life through their service and leadership.
A committee comprised of Marquette faculty and administrators will select final candidates, and the naming of the Luminaries will be recognized in the Fall of 2009 as we enter the next 100 years of the College of Engineering at Marquette University.
We invite you to nominate Luminaries of Marquette Engineeringto honor alumni - living or deceased - who serve as innovators and achievers in the field of engineering, technology and industry.
Please click here for an online nomination form or call 1-800-344-7544 to nominate a Marquette Engineering Luminary by December 31, 2008.
ROTC Cadet Honored. Midshipman Second Class Dominic Chiaverotti received the 2008 United States Navy – ROTC Marine Option award on October 10th at the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Corporation (HENAAC) conference in Houston. HENAAC, a non-profit organization, focuses on science, technology, engineering and mathematics education awareness programs for Hispanic students of all ages. The organization identifies, honors and documents the contributions of outstanding Hispanic American professionals and students. Dominic is a junior in mechanical engineering and is being honored for his academic success, leadership roles and dedication to service
sySTEM Now! Do you want to get involved with promoting STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education? Then plan to attend the 5th annual sySTEM Now! conference on Marquette’s campus on October 21st. Many breakout sessions will be offered covering a variety of topics and issues relating to STEM education and the keynote speaker will be Dr. Irving Pressley McPhail, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the National Action Council of Minorities in Engineering (NACME).
For more information and registration materials, please contact
Lori Stempski.
Another Outreach Initiative. Tuesday, October 7th was Messmer Day at Marquette with over 60 students from the private, college preparatory high school in Milwaukee in attendance. Students could choose from Journalism, Broadcasting, Theatre or Engineering workshops.
Your college’s Engineering Outreach engaged eighteen Messmer students who showed interest in engineering careers. Students were presented with the exciting and rewarding opportunities available to engineers in the new global economy and also practiced their engineering skills as they assembled mechanisms that demonstrate mechanical and fluid power.
Messmer high school students engage in hands-on engineering activities
Gaggioli Continues Scholarly Activities. Dr. Richard A. Gaggioli, former Professor of Mechanical Engineering - retired in 2002, continues his professional work. Last summer, Dr. Gaggioli presented a keynote address at the international energy engineering conference, ECOS 2008, in Krakow, Poland. His talk was entitled “Ideas About Teaching and Understanding Elementary Thermodynamics and Energy Conversion.”
A year ago, at ECOS 2007 in Padova, Italy, Gaggioli presented the keynote lecture “Viewpoints on Theory of Thermodynamics,” as well as a paper “Features of an Introductory in Thermofluids.” Since “retirement,” he has also been a co-contributor to a chapter in a technical book and several papers and a presenter of two papers at the 2006 annual meeting of ASME.
“Before long” . . . Dr. Gaggioli aspires to figuring out a statement of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics that will provide a single “equation of motion” for predicting the behavior of all processes – macro, nano and micro. And he hopes to write – definitely with the help of others – textbooks on thermofluids science and thermodynamics.
Wishful thinking? He admits, “Probably.” Time will tell. In any case, in the meantime he will continue enjoying “scholarly pursuits.”
Combining Cars and Medicine to Keep People Safer. For years, Jason Hallman knew he wanted to work in medicine – but he just couldn’t ignore his love for cars. Jason, a graduate student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and engineering research assistant in the neurosurgery department of the Medical College of Wisconsin, recently won a $10,000 student research grant from the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Engineering.
With this grant he will work with neurosurgeons to study the protective effects of side airbags. He has been investigating so-called “torso air bags” – those designed to protect the region between the shoulder and the hip – and how they affect the biomechanics of the chest and abdomen during a side-impact crash.
Because these air bag technologies are still quite new, an understanding of how they work is limited and few real-life examples of their performance are available. Therefore, Hallman designed a computer simulation that would simulate what happens in a crash. He has studied the effects in different positions in the car and in crashes of different severities. What he found was a suggestion that, in some cases, the air bag actually hurt the occupant more than it helped him or her.
With this new grant, Jason plans to take his research to the next level. He’ll be studying a database of actual crashes to find examples of airbags that did not help. From these real-life examples, the scenarios will be recreated in the laboratory using crash dummies, with the results allowing him to fine-tune the understanding of torso airbags and confirm or deny what the computer model is telling him.
As part of the grant, Hallman will have the opportunity to share his findings with others in the industry at a national gathering next year.
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