Here - Temple`s College of Engineering

The newsletter for Alumni and Friends of Temple university’s College of Engineering
Temple Engineering
SprIng/SummEr 2012
College Enhances Innovative,
Hands-On Engineering Education
In THIS ISSuE
> College Enhances Innovative,
Hands-On Engineering
Education
> Dean’s message
> Alumni Spotlight
> news Briefs
> College Alumni Association
president’s message
> Student and Staff profiles
Bruce Alberts, PhD
Temple’s keynote speaker for National Engineers’ Week in
March, Bruce Alberts, PhD, argued that the United States needs
to re-emphasize STEM education with a particular focus on
inquiry-based, hands-on science education.
engineering. He co-teaches the course with Associate Professor
William Miller, PhD, civil and environmental engineering, and
Assistant Professor Shriram Pillapakkam, PhD, mechanical
engineering.
“If we don’t change,” cautioned Alberts, the editor-in-chief of
Science magazine and former two-term president of the National
Academy of Sciences, “our country is going to be in big trouble.”
“e idea,” Helferty continues, “is to get them to use real CAD
software, real microprocessors and real control systems using
iPads to control their hovercraft.”
Dedicated to attracting, retaining and energizing a growing
number of undergraduate engineering students, the College of
Engineering is taking up the gauntlet thrown down by Alberts.
e college’s commitment begins with a significantly revamped
Introduction to Engineering course and extends throughout the
curriculum to a revised capstone senior design project.
Adds Pillapakkam: “e students were able to design everything
on the computer first and then they went to a machine shop
where they were able to cut everything they had designed using a
rapid prototype machine or 3-D printer.”
Introductory Engineering Course
is past academic year all freshmen—155 during the fall
semester and 150 this spring—took the new two-credit
introductory course. “Many of our undergraduates come in with
undeclared majors,” explains George Baran, PhD, associate dean,
“so the intro course has been redesigned to familiarize them with
the differences between the branches of engineering.” Extremely
hands-on, the course culminates with teams of three or four
students designing, building and racing of remote-controlled,
small-scale hovercraft.
“Rather than just offer an overview of the different disciplines,
we felt it would be more advantageous for the students to quickly
get their hands on real technology they would be using
throughout the curriculum and their professional careers,” says
John Helferty, PhD, associate professor, electrical and computer
> Alumni Events
Each hovercraft incorporated fans, for both lift and forward
thrust, and rudders for control. e students also programmed
onboard microprocessors to receive wireless commands for their
iPads. After the first 10 weeks, students were assigned to an open
lab to build their designs. “e lab was packed from noon to
eight o’clock at night,” reports Helferty.
“When I first learned we were going to build a hovercraft I
thought it was insane because we’re freshmen and we didn’t really
know anything,” says Taylor Million, an electrical engineering
major from Cleveland, Ohio. “But the assignment really pulled
together everything we worked on throughout the semester.”
Southwest Philadelphia’s Raven Hooper, a computer engineering
major, agrees: “When we got to see our hovercraft actually move,
I thought, ‘Oh my God, I built that!’”
Vincent Bo Tran, a freshman transfer student from Holy Family
University, was part of the fall-semester winning team, whose
hovercraft negotiated the 70-foot-long oval track in 24.1 seconds.
(continued on page 4)
Temple Engineering is published by Temple university College of
Engineering for alumni and friends.
Dean | Keya Sadeghipour, phD
Director of Development and Alumni Affairs | maureen Kuhar
Assistant Director of Development and Alumni Affairs | molly Sullivan
Editors | maureen Kuhar and molly Sullivan
Writing | Bruce Beans, Design | garrison printing
message from the Dean
President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competiveness has set a national goal of graduating
10,000 more engineers a year—which would represent a jump of 14 percent above the
72,300 engineering bachelor’s degrees that were awarded last year.
To help the U.S. fend off the growing threat from such rising nations as China and India,
the College of Engineering over the past few years has made a concerted effort to
dramatically transform the way we teach engineering. By emphasizing more innovative,
hands-on learning, we hope to both attract more engineering students and, once they have
entered the college, to retain more of them.
The College of
Engineering
continues to be
one of the
fastest growing
colleges and
schools within
the entire
university.
Here at Temple, the trends our encouraging. e College of Engineering continues to be one
of the fastest growing colleges and schools within the entire university. Our undergraduate
enrollment at the beginning of the fall semester was 1,111, a 7.6 percent increase over the
previous year. at increase built upon three straight years of double-digit increases that
ranged between 10.7 and 12.6 percent.
In addition, even before the implementation of some of our most recent educational reforms,
the six-year graduation rate for the college’s undergraduates had grown from 43.9 percent for
1999’s freshmen class to 59.6 percent for freshmen who entered in 2004—a dramatic 35
percent increase. Considering the relative rigor of our curriculum, that’s particularly
impressive when compared to the overall university six-year graduation rate of 63.5 percent.
As you will see in this issue of Temple Engineering, we strongly believe that the educational
innovations which we have recently implemented—innovations that greatly increase our
students’ opportunities to actually practice engineering as they learn it—will increase those
graduation rates even more.
e college also offers two extremely successful general education courses for non-science
majors. While it would be great if these courses actually led to the recruitment of engineering
majors, the primary goal of both the Environment and the Bionic Human courses is to stress
the importance of engineering and technology in the students’ everyday lives. Given their
popularity—the Environment course is one of the university’s most popular gen ed
courses—the message appears to be getting through.
My regards,
Keya Sadeghipour, PhD
Dean
2
Alumni profile
On the gridiron or in His mechanical Engineering Lab, Tony Schmitz Competes
Football can be incredibly demanding. So can
engineering. It’s a rare individual who succeeds at
both. But then there’s Tony Schmitz, who throughout
his life has repeatedly found ways to pursue his dual
passions—and, in several cases, even combine them.
Most recently Schmitz, ME ’93, a safety who called
the defensive signals for the Owls’ 1990 and 1991
football squads, was the scientific advisor for an NBC
Learn unit that won a 2011 Sports Emmy Award for
the Science of NFL Football video series.
However, there also are also ample examples of how
Schmitz—a 2012 Temple University alumni fellow
and the College of Engineering’s 1999 Gallery of
Success honoree who now teaches at the University
of North Carolina at Charlotte—has been pulled in
opposite directions by his dual interests.
For example, after graduating from his rural Kansas
high school he eschewed the chance to attend the
U.S. Air Force Academy in order to play football at
Independence (Kan.) Community College. Why?
To keep alive his dream of playing Division I
football as a junior college transfer, an ambition he
realized at Temple.
“I was a guy who just loved to compete and I still
do,” says Schmitz, whose 1990 team went 7-4.
“Having the opportunity to compete every Saturday
against some of the best football players in the
country, including against Penn State, is something
I’ll forever be grateful for.”
For Schmitz, whose father was a self-taught
manufacturing engineer at Boeing’s Wichita, Kan.,
aviation plant, combining mechanical engineering
with football came naturally.
“Both are hard to do,” he says. “But I wanted both of
these things so badly that I was willing to set aside
everything else so that, effectively, I had no social
life.” Steven Ridenour, PhD, then the Mechanical
Engineering Department chair, was very
accommodating. “He understood my scheduling
restrictions,” says Schmitz, “and helped me a great
deal”—including working with Schmitz’ senior
design team, who built (surprise!) an innovative
weight-lifting machine.
After exhausting his playing eligibility, during his
final year at Temple he helped coach the Holy Cross
High School football team in Delran, N.J. to an
undefeated state championship. en, after
graduating from Temple summa cum laude as the
top engineering student, instead of pursuing an
engineering job he helped his former Temple
defensive coordinator, Ron Chismar, coach the
Left:Tony Schmitz playing for the Owls as a Defensive Back. Right: Tony poses with his family, son Jake, daughter Barbara, and wife
Christine SCT '92, in front of the TUAA Fellows Award he received at the Engineers Week reception.
Fort Scott (Kan.) Community College football team.
To support himself, he worked in a hot, dirty,
physically demanding cast-iron foundry. “It was a
terrible, terrible job,” recalls Schmitz.
Suddenly enlightened, he used a National Science
Foundation (NSF) graduate traineeship to begin
earning his master’s (1996) and doctoral (1999)
degrees in mechanical engineering at the University
of Florida. He then studied and worked at the
National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST) in Maryland and lectured at Johns Hopkins
University before returning to UF from 2002 to 2011
as an assistant and then associate professor.
Schmitz many honors include a NSF CAREER
Award and an Office of Naval Research Young
Investigators Award, both in 2003. He holds several
patents and has co-authored two books.
While at Florida he also produced a series of
humorous Pigskin Professor videos, which explained
the physics of football to UF fans during games in
order to popularize science.
at led to his scientific advisor role for Science of
NFL Football videos, which the NSF funded to
enhance secondary and undergraduate STEM
education. e 10 videos feature former pros such
as placekicker Morten Andersen and running back
Deuce McAllister demonstrating how scientific
concepts such as the Pythagorean eorem and
Newton’s laws of motion play integral roles in football.
“My job,” says Schmitz, “was to make sure they got
the science right.”
Last year he was lured to UNC Charlotte by two of
his former UF professors and his NIST post-graduate
advisor, all of whom had joined the burgeoning
Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Science
Department. ere the associate professor is
continuing his research focus of the past decade:
predicting and minimizing high-speed machining
dynamics (vibrations). “Depending on your
operating parameters, those vibrations can grow into
what we call chatter,” he explains. “When the forces
are large enough, you can damage your cutting tool,
your work piece or both.”
Schmitz is an active participant in the Machine Tool
Genome Project, an effort to commercialize his area
of research that is supported, in part, by the federal
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Also,
in collaboration with such locally based energy
giants as Siemens, Duke Energy and AREVA, UNC
Charlotte’s engineering college has launched the
Energy Production & Infrastructure Center. “Making
gigantic steam and gas turbines involves a lot of metal
cutting, so part of my job is to spur that industry,”
says Schmitz. “It’s an exciting time to be here.”
Schmidt lives with his wife, Christine, who teaches
technical writing at UNCC, and their two children,
in Weddington, N.C.—where he still finds time to be
an assistant high school football coach. “I still love the
competition,” he explains.
3
College’s Two general Education
Courses Attract Hundreds of
non-Science majors
The College of Engineering educates nonscience majors through two extremely popular
general education courses. The Bionic Human
course attracts three sections of 70 students
each, or more than 400 students annually. The
Environment course, which may be the
university’s most popular gen ed course, fills
about 30 sections per semester and involves
1,800 students per year.
The course goals include: enhancing science
literacy, heightening students’ awareness of
scientific issues affecting their everyday lives
and training them to use evidence-based
decision-making throughout their lives.
Offered by the mechanical Engineering
Department, the Bionic Human course is taught
by Associate Dean george Baran, phD,
Department Chair mohammad Kiani, phD, and
professor nancy pleshko, phD. It covers such
topics as bio-engineered technologies and
replacement body parts for age-, disease-,
sports- and accident- related injuries; medical
imaging; drug delivery and nanotechnologies.
“The first day I tell them ‘One of the problems we
face, especially in a democratic country, is
literacy of science’,” says Kiani. “Several years
ago pennsylvania decided to spend several
billion dollars on nanotechnology. I tell them,
‘That’s your money. You should at least know
what nanotechnology is.’
“I also hope they get the sense that these topics
are not hard or scary and that engineers are not
a bunch of crazy geeks, but ordinary people who
work on important questions.”
What are the top 10 environmental toxins to
avoid? Is global warming for real? Should the
u.S. sign the Kyoto protocol? Those are just
three of the questions covered by the
Environment course. The course is taught by six
full-time and 14 adjunct professors in the Civil
and Environmental Engineering Department. It is
coordinated by Leonard Bernstein, m.S., an
assistant professor who for 32 years was a
wastewater treatment engineer for the
philadelphia Water Department.
“I try to teach my students that every
environmental issue has two sides,” says
Bernstein, who teaches four classes per
semester. “For example, it is very possible that in
their lifetimes the world could run out of oil.
Knowing that, it’s their choice whether they
drive an SuV or a hybrid auto. I’m trying to teach
them not what to think but how to think about
environmental issues.”
4
College Enhances Innovative,
Hands-On Engineering Education (continued)
“It was the most enjoyable and most hands-on class I
could ever imagine,” says Tran, whose team split the
first-place prize of $1,000 provided by NASA’s
Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium. As a result of
the course, Tran switched his major from mechanical
to electrical engineering, illustrating yet another
benefit: helping students better decide which major
to pursue.
NASA also provided $500 and $200 prizes for the
second- and third-place finishers, but as Helferty says,
“Everybody is a winner in this. We had 36 different
groups and they came up with 36 different designs.”
more Hands-On Curriculum
e 3-D prototype printers freshmen use in the
introductory classes are being utilized in many other
classes as well. “If you can construct a working
prototype you learn a heck of a lot more not only
about the theory of engineering design but also about
manufacturing,” says Steve Ridenour, PhD, professor
and director of undergraduate studies. “You learn
nitty-gritty things about getting parts to fit and
function together and get involved in troubleshooting
and problem solving.
“It’s a whole different level when you have a working
prototype.”
Prototypes are certainly emphasized in the
Mechanical Engineering Department. “When I first
came here seven years ago the curriculum was very
traditional, without a lot of room for electives, and
the courses were very structured,” says Mohammad F.
Kiani, PhD, chair of the Mechanical Engineering
Department. “Since then we’ve introduced more
electives, specialization and flexibility.
“Also, design has now been built into each course,
with all the labs revamped and lab components added
to other courses,” he adds. In many courses, by the
end of the semester students must design, build and
test something. At a minimum, if rapid prototyping is
not possible, the testing is conducted using state-ofthe-art computer modeling systems such as
Pro/Engineer or SolidWorks, “so they can test their
design and see if it makes sense, at least
mathematically.”
Likewise, the Civil and Environmental Engineering
Department emphasizes using the same software
modeling programs that professional engineers
currently use. Students have free access to the Bentley
Portable circuit board that the Electrical and Computer
Engineering Department is supplying students.
Corporation’s civil and environmental engineering
software modeling systems, including structural,
surveying and hydrology programs, as well as EPA’s
SWMM and the HydroCAD® storm water
management models.
“We’ve brought the industry into our classrooms,”
says Bechara Abboud, PhD, associate professor. “e
software allows our students to do online training for
free and that makes them more attractive to industry.”
Christopher Hall, a graduating civil engineering
major, says firms that have interviewed him have been
impressed with his familiarity with Bentley’s STAAD
Pro structural analysis software. “We use that every
day,” they say.
e Electrical and Computer Engineering
Department is tapping technology in another way:
offering open, flexible laboratories by supplying
students with portable circuit boards.
“We don’t want to make the lab opportunity a grade
opportunity but more of a professional educational
opportunity,” says Dennis Silage, PhD, ECE
professor, who also provides his students with
similarly flexible simulation programs.
Several portable labs are currently being lent to
students. Ultimately, the department hopes to supply
sophomores with one board that will incorporate all
required labs through graduation. Connected to and
powered by a laptop, which also serves as an
oscilloscope, the boards can incorporate a wave-form
generator, a volt meter and logic analyzer.
Instead of being limited to a fixed two-hour lab time,
says Silage, “Students are more amenable to working
at their own pace and going beyond the minimum
Senior Design project
requirements.” Students in his embedded systems
class have worked on their labs in hallways, on trains
and even in an on-campus bar. “If it was a fixed lab
we wouldn’t be able to even get the lab done,” says
Michael Fernandez, a junior from Bridesburg.
“Everyone learns differently and the portable labs
really worked well for me,” adds John Ruddy, EE ’10,
who also finished his master’s degree at Temple this
spring. “Once you’ve finished the lab but are still
trying to figure things out, you can sit at home as
long as you want to explore a little more.”
Finally, students are being encouraged to spend the
final two weeks of their assigned labs designing even
more advanced laboratory exercises—labs that can be
subsequently adopted for future classes.
“It helps you engage your critical and creative
thinking abilities,” says senior Bryan Dallas, a
mechanical engineering major who, for example,
greatly elaborated on a lab that involves determining
varying friction forces of water forced through pipe
segments. “If you’re making up lab questions for
other students, you have to make sure you yourself
really understand it.”
new Course Options
With the 2009 hiring of Svetlana Neretina, PhD,
assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and the
acquisition of sophisticated equipment, the college
has also invested heavily in alternative energy
technologies. Her three courses—photovoltaic system
design, nanotechnology solutions for a sustainable
environment and renewable and alternative energy—
are partially supported by a National Science
Foundation Nanotechnology Undergraduate
Education grant.
In Neretina’s photovoltaic course, students use
titanium dioxide powder and organic dyes to
fabricate nanostructured solar cells and measure their
efficiency with research-quality instrumentation.
“ese lab modules not only give students hands-on
experiences in alternative energy,” says Neretina, “but
also introduce them to next-generation solar cells
based on nanotechnology.”
Another relatively new course is the entrepreneurship
elective taught by assistant professor Dwight Carey,
the creator of nearly 20 businesses who has a dual
appointment in the university’s Fox School of
Business, e course, which attracts as many as 50
engineering students, was inspired by middle-aged
engineering executives who often pull him aside to
ask: “How can I start my own business?”
Bamboo-frame hybrid bicycle,
one of the senior design projects.
Under the direction of Joseph Picone, PhD, chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department,
the senior design project also has been strengthened. Students must consider their project’s relevance to
societal problems as well as usability, manufacturing and retail pricing issues. And instead of being
compartmentalized by major, the design teams now must be multidisciplinary.
“It’s a holistic view of the design process,” says Picone, “which is the way it is in the real world.”
Instead of being
compartmentalized
by major, the design
teams now must be
multidisciplinary.
“Working on a team
is great because
you get to learn a
lot of things that
you are unfamiliar
with,” says one
of the mechanical
engineering majors.
For example, a quartet of seniors working on a rope pump to enhance
safe water supplies in under-developed countries included two
mechanical engineering majors who worked on the pulley-and-a-crank
system; a civil engineering major who designed the concrete well
covering; and an environmental engineering major who maximized
the hydraulics.
“Working on a team, which is something all engineers have to do, is
great because you get to learn a lot of things that you are unfamiliar
with,” says Melissa MacKinnon, one of the mechanical engineering
majors, who is from Sinking Spring, Pa.
Another team, which designed a bamboo-frame hybrid bicycle, agrees.
“e mix of majors helped tremendously,” says Bayan Khalighi, an
electrical engineering major. He and EE major Asish Mathew worked
on the motor and battery mounted on the rear fender, Robert Stark
(mechanical) focused on the bamboo frame and Tan Ha (electrical)
created applications for a smart phone to be docked on the handlebars.
e battery, which charges when the bike is pedaled, can enable the
motor to power the bike for 40 miles at up to19 m.p.h.
Want to know where you are, how fast or far you are going or how
many calories you are burning? ere are apps for that.
“I definitely learned a lot about the electrical side,” says Stark, an Easton, Pa. native, “and I taught Bayan
some things about the mechanical side.” When they initially encountered electrical snags, Stark adds, “I had
a vision and Bayan perfected it.”
Carey mentored their Banner Bike Company entry in the Fox School of Business’ Be Your Own Boss
Bowl—an April competition in which they won a $10,000 prize for the Best Written Cleantech Plan.
During the previous five years, two of the grand prize-winning teams were engineering students mentored
by Carey.
“A bamboo bicycle with a GPS system that can charge your cell phone!” Carey enthuses. “at’s really cool.
ere’s nothing like that in the world.”
5
news Briefs
Engineering Students Launch Experiments
on nASA rocket
Watching from Wallops Island Flight Facility as a year’s worth of his scientific
work lifted off into a clear Virginia sky, Donovan Bolger could only stand back
and marvel.
“I was in awe at first — just the sheer speed of the rocket taking off,” said the
2011 Temple electrical and computer engineering graduate. “en I realized that
something I worked on all year long was on it. I had almost forgotten that that
was what we had come here for.”
Bolger was among nine Temple engineering students who spent up to a year
designing and building two experiments that were launched on June 23, 2011,
aboard the two-stage solid booster
going through the nASA rocket Terrier Orion II. e projects
were part of RockSat, a NASA and
design process, with its
Colorado Space Grant Consortium
program that prepares students to
many requirements and
design payloads for space flight.
College Expands Into the Two Top Floors
of the College of Engineering Building
Renovation work is underway to significantly expand the College of Engineering’s
facilities within its 12th Street building. e work, which is expected to be
completed at the beginning of the fall 2012 semester, involves extensive alterations
of both the 8th and 9th floors, the top two floors of the building.
e renovations include the following:
• 8th Floor: Laboratory and office space for the newly created Department
of Bioengineering
• 9th Floor: Primarily large laboratories for faculty and graduate-level
research as well as graduate teaching spaces
e renovations began this past semester after the Tyler School of Art’s Department
of Architecture vacated the two floors over the winter break for its new building at
13th and Norris streets.
According to Steven Lengkeek, assistant dean, of the additional 22,000 square feet
spread across the two floors, about 12,000 square feet will be devoted to laboratory
space. Since the Bioengineering Department is initially offering just graduatelevel programming, its 9th floor laboratory space at first will house only research
laboratories. However, once the Bioengineering Department’s undergraduate
curriculum is implemented in fall 2014, some of that laboratory space will be
converted to undergraduate teaching laboratories.
“Taking over the top two floors of the building gives us the space we currently
need by providing space for both the new Bioengineering Department and to
accommodate our continuing enrollment growth,” says Lengkeek. “But it just
addresses our current needs.”
As the college’s student enrollment grows larger, he adds, further facility expansion
will be necessary.
specifications, is
helping to prepare for
challenges faced in
industry, where
companies require work
within established
specifications.
Led by faculty advisor John Helferty,
PhD, professor of electrical and
computer engineering, Bolger and
three fellow electrical engineering
students—John Zelby, Xuhui Liu
and Greg Wells—had designed and
constructed an active vibration
suppression system for testing on the
rocket as their senior design project.
e students will compare their data
to that of a Temple team that developed a passive vibration dampening system
launched on a flight the previous year.
“NASA has a specific methodology for all design processes,” said Helferty, who
once worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “ey want us, engineering
institutions, to begin using that methodology in senior design projects so that
students get an idea of what that methodology is, so when NASA hires them,
they’re familiar with it.”
Eight universities had payloads on the rocket, which soared to an altitude of 73
miles and traveled approximately 50 miles before splashing down in the Atlantic
Ocean. Each payload was limited to less than 4.75-inches high and no more
than 6.5 pounds and was subject to current and voltage restrictions. e rocket
was recovered and the payloads brought back to Wallops Island where each team
could retrieve its data.
A second team of Temple electrical and computer engineering students that
included rising seniors Yuri Apel, Allison Tierney, Bill Bagdon, Gaurang Fuletra
and Jaykrishna Shukla designed an experiment to measure the magnitude and
direction of earth’s magnetic field throughout the flight of the rocket.
Apel said that going through the NASA design process, with its many
requirements and specifications, is helping to prepare him for challenges he will
face in industry, where companies require work within established specifications.
Likewise, Bolger said he learned a lot from participating in RockSat that he
might not have gained in the classroom.
Of the launch itself, Apel said, “It was pretty exciting. I don’t mind waking up
at four in the morning for this.”
6
Allison Tierney, EE ’12, one of the electrical engineering majors who took part
in the rocket launch project, also was awarded an $8,000 NASA Space Grant
Scholarship for the 2011-2012 academic year. She was selected on the strength
of her academic credentials and outstanding service.
In return for the scholarship, Tierney was required to do community outreach to
enhance awareness of engineering and the sciences. During the fall semester she
assisted Iyad Obeid, PhD, assistant professor in the Electrical and Computer
Engineering Department, in organizing last spring’s IEEE Northeast
Bioengineering Conference, which was hosted by the College of Engineering.
During this past spring she assisted one of her cousins, who is a fourth-grade
teacher in the Hatboro-Horsham School District in Montgomery County, with
the students’ science lessons.
“e scholarship really helped defray my tuition costs,” says Tierney, who
graduated in May.
new program Expands STEm Education
throughout pA
Temple University and e College of Engineering have joined together with the
U.S. Navy to bring the national award-winning Math Engineering Science
Achievement MESA program to Pennsylvania.
A ribbon cutting last year at the Philadelphia Navy Yard to celebrate Temple’s
receipt of its MESA license was attended by 60 middle and high school students
from the Philadelphia School District, their parents, top Navy commanders—
including U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead—and
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter.
is picture was taken for the 2012 NASA's Wallops Island Flight Facility RockSat launch. It shows the
integrated payload that was launched on a Terrior-Orion 2 two-stage rocket that traveled 63 miles into
the ermosphere into suborbit. From right to left: Bill Bagdon, Yuri Apel, Allison Tierney, and
Professor John Helferty.
Temple has been a key
leader in supporting
community efforts to
bring high-quality
science, technology,
engineering and math
education to the students
of philadelphia and the
surrounding region.
Representing Temple were Richard
Englert, Temple University’s
new acting president, and Jamie
Bracey, director of STEM (science,
technology, engineering & math)
education, outreach and research in
the College of Engineering.
“e launch of the MESA
Pennsylvania, and our investment
in youth you see here today is just
the beginning of a carefully-crafted
movement to partner with families,
school districts, elected officials,
community leaders and companies
to build a solid STEM workforce
that we will need to compete economically in a global environment,” said
Englert. “Temple has been a key leader in supporting community efforts to
bring high-quality STEM education to the students of Philadelphia and the
surrounding region.”
e MESA initiative is designed to increase the number of scientists,
technologists, engineers and related professionals who are able to graduate from
a two- or four-year institution; and to diversify American students who achieve
advanced degrees leading to research and development to create new products
and to support the nation’s defense. Over the past 40 years, nearly 70 percent
of MESA students — many of them minorities and women — have entered
STEM fields.
Temple’s new Acting President Richard Englert, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary
Roughead and Jamie Bracey, director of STEM education, outreach and research in the College
of Engineering, cut the ribbon to officially launch the Pennsylvania Math Engineering Science
Achievement (MESA) initiative during a ceremony at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.
KELLY & MASSA PHOTOGRAPHY
Student Awarded nASA Space grant Scholarship
7
news Briefs continued
Two mechanical Engineering phD Students
receive prestigious national AHA Fellowships
ECE professor Develops Tactile Imaging Sensor
to ID Tumors Early
Two mechanical engineering doctoral candidates, Kaveh Laksari and Giuseppina
Lamberti, are currently focusing completely on their doctoral research work
thanks to prestigious pre-doctoral fellowships they have received from the
American Heart Association (AHA).
A key part of a medical patient’s physical examination is performed through
touch, but the doctor can only glean so much information from what he feels.
at’s why Chang-Hee Won, associate professor of electrical and computer
engineering, has created a prototype device that not only emulates human tactile
sensation, but quantifies it as well.
e two are just the most recent of five graduate students in the Mechanical
Engineering Department who have received these national AHA fellowships
in the past few years. Combined with a small supplement from the College
of Engineering, the fellowships are each worth $25,000 per year and relieve
the students from teaching or research assistance duties. Both fellowships
began last July.
“e fellowship has allowed me to devote 100 percent of my time on my research,”
says Laksari, a native of Iran who came to Temple five years ago earned his M.S. in
mechanical engineering in 2009. Working in the Biomechanics Laboratory under
his doctoral advisor, Kurosh Darvish, PhD, assistant professor, Laksari is
developing computational modeling to simulate the effect of shock waves
generated by such phenomena as explosions and vehicular accidents. A better
understanding of such effects, he says, could lead to safer cars or more protective
military gear.
Lamberti, a native of Italy who holds an M.S. in medical engineering, is working
in the Biofluidics Laboratory under her doctoral advisor Mohammad Kiani, PhD,
professor and chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department. “e fellowship is
significant because it shows that people outside of your Temple professors
understand the importance of your research and support it,” she says.
Lamberti’s doctoral research is focused on developing a novel device to mimic and
study the interactions between leukocytes, or white blood cells, and the
endothelium cells which line the inner walls of all blood vessels. Its development
could enhance drug discovery and development of pharmaceuticals that address a
wide range of diseases, including cardiovascular diseases and cancers, associated
with inflammation of blood vessels.
Last fall Lamberti also presented findings of a related but separate study at the
annual conference of the Biomedical Engineering Society in Hartford, Conn. She
expects that her investigation of how to improve the efficacy of therapeutic drugs
for vascular diseases by enhancing the drugs’ adhesion to the endothelium will
soon be published in a scientific journal.
Professor Won's prototype
device emulates human
tactile sensation and
quantifies it as well.
8
“e human hands have this amazing ability to touch something and tell if it’s
soft or hard, if it’s wet or even its temperature,” said Won, who is also director of
the college’s Control, Sensor, Network and Perception Laboratory. “We’re trying
to emulate this tactile sensation with a device that will actually quantify this by
giving us the mechanical properties of what we are feeling.”
Won said the tactile imaging sensor could aid doctors when they feel lesions,
lumps or tumors while doing physical exams on patients by detecting the size and
shape of the lesion or tumor, as well as its elasticity and mobility. “Once a doctor
feels a lesion, lump or tumor, they can use this device to actually characterize the
mechanical properties of the irregularity that they have felt,” he said.
Won said that studies have shown that cancerous lesions and tumors tend to be
larger, more irregular in shape or have harder elasticity. “Using the information
gleaned by our device, we can determine the probability of this lesion or tumor
being either malignant or benign,” he says.
e portable tactile imaging sensor can be attached to any desktop or laptop
computer that has a Firewire cable port. Equipped with four LED lights and a
camera, the 4.5-inch device has a flexible transparent elastomer cube on the end,
into which light is injected.
When the doctor feels an irregularity while giving a patient a physical exam,
he or she can place the sensor against the skin where the irregularity was felt.
e sensor uses the total internal reflection principle, which keeps the injected
light within the elastomer cube unless an intrusion from a lesion or tumor
changes the contour of the elastomer’s surface, in which case the light will
reflect out of the cube.
e sensor’s camera will then capture the lesion or tumor images caused by the
reflected light and they are processed with a novel algorithm developed by the
CSNAP Lab to calculate the lesion’s mechanical properties.
Won stressed that the device is not designed to replace
such tests as mammograms for breast tumors, but to
assist the primary doctor in initially obtaining key
information. “Most primary physicians’ offices are not
equipped to perform tests such as mammograms,” he
says. “is device would provide the doctor key
information by allowing them to quantify and display
the lesion or tumor. With this information, they
can decide whether to monitor it or send the patient to
a specialist or hospital for a more definitive diagnosis.”
e non-invasive device can detect lumps or tumors
up to 3 centimeters under the skin. “If you can feel it
with your finger, you can see it with this device,” says
Won. It is also inexpensive. e prototype cost
approximately $500.
A message from the
Alumni Association president
greetings Fellow
Alumni:
When I began
my term last
June as your
Alumni
Association
president, I must
confess to some
trepidation. my
predecessor, ron Kerins, had done such
a superb job in moving the association
forward with his mantra of “reconnect”
that I wondered about my ability to fill his
shoes. But I must say, after learning the
ropes from ron and some others, I’m
having a blast. If you’ve been to some
of our recent events, then you know what
I mean.
Last fall’s Homecoming Football Tailgate
saw a huge turnout of alums and their
families—and a shutout victory for the
Owls! The Fall Happy Hour at the
Comcast Center was also a great
networking event and the Holiday party,
which honored long-time alumni
volunteers, was packed with friends and
colleagues. Finally, this year’s Dunk ’n
Dine basketball game against Xavier
attracted our largest turnout ever, with
over 90 alums and their spouses. next
year, we will need an even bigger suite.
There also are even bigger and better
events in the planning stages. As the
Owls move back to the Big East
Conference, the Homecoming Committee
is working on another huge tailgate event.
meanwhile, your Alumni Association
continues to grow, with recent alumni and
long lost friends returning. Why? my
sense is that it’s because they’re having
so much fun at the events. I know I do.
If you’d like to reconnect with your
former classmates and the College of
Engineering, I’d love to hear from you.
mark Onesky, CCET '84
[email protected]
Alumni news
College of Engineering Celebrates professor Emeritus
Al greenspan’s 90th Birthday
Left: Al Greenspan (left) poses with his extended family at his birthday reception. Right: Al holds his gift, a signed basketball from
Men's Basketball Coach Fran Dunphy, as he poses with Hooter the Owl.
e College of Engineering hosted a reception for
Professor Emeritus Al Greenspan’s 90th birthday on
Friday, March 23rd. Close family, friends and former
colleagues from the College of Engineering gathered
at Shusterman Hall to celebrate Professor Greenspan’s
birthday. It was a lovely evening where the college was
able to thank him for being a wonderful teacher,
leader, supporter and friend for over 40 years.
by hiring them—in a time before work-study
programs— as employees in his start-up company,
Campus Industries. While earning money for college,
the students gained hands on engineering experience
working closely with Greenspan to develop and
produce the world’s-smallest engine, which ran model
airplanes. One of the engines developed by Campus
Industries is on display at the Smithsonian’s Air and
Space Museum in Washington, DC.
Professor Greenspan began his time at the College
of Engineering as a teacher and eventually became
chairman of the Mechanical Engineering
Department. He served in this role for 13 years.
Al was also the chairman of the University
Educational Policies and Practices Committee,
chairman of the University Faculty Workload
Committee and member of the University Faculty
Senate Steering Committee.
After completing a master’s degree in mechanical
engineering, Greenspan followed his entrepreneurial
spirit and founded Reinforced Plastics Inc. He served
as president and chief executive office after the
company began a subsidiary of SL Industries. During
that period, Greenspan began teaching in the College
of Engineering, starting out with a course that met
one evening a week.
In addition, Al has supported the college with a
$1 million dollar gift. is is the largest gift to the
college ever. His gift established an endowed
scholarship fund that will provide full-time tuition
support to four undergraduates in the College of
Engineering on a rolling basis. e four Greenspan
Scholars will be selected based on academic merit
and financial need.
Temple became a tradition for Greenspan’s family.
Two of his sons graduated from the Beasley School of
Law, the third son from the School of Medicine, and
his daughter-in-law from the College of Education.
One of Greenspan’s granddaughters recently earned a
degree from the College of Liberal Arts, and a second
granddaughter has graduated from the Beasley School
of Law.
Al was able to pursue his formal degree at Drexel
University because of a scholarship he received.
He said “I always hoped that in some way I would
be able to repay the opportunity that was given me.”
At Drexel he mentored less-experienced students
Today Greenspan continues to work part time for the
College of Engineering. Since retiring from formal
teaching duties, he consults with the Dean on the
direction of the college and is an active member of
the Alumni Association.
9
Student profile
Automotive Engineering Lures Kyle Stern
Anybody
majoring in
mechanical
engineering can
find something
on a car that
interests them
By his own admission, Kyle Stern’s car—a used Ford
Taurus his parents recently gave him—isn’t all that
impressive.
research,” says Stern, whose exam finals precluded him from going to St. Louis.
“We also got to visit a lot of automotive companies and talk to a lot of engineers
and managers, which also got me interested in automotive engineering.
e junior mechanical engineering major also wasn’t
terribly interested in automotive engineering when he
nonetheless participated in the Automotive and
Energy Research and Industrial Mentorship Program
offered by Oakland University (OU) in suburban
Detroit.
“Anybody majoring in mechanical engineering can find something on a car
that interests them,” says the Northeast Philadelphia native. “If engines and
combustion don’t interest you, you can work on suspensions or chassis systems
or aerodynamics.”
What a difference a year makes. is summer he is
spending 12 weeks back in Detroit as a paid intern in
Chrysler Corporation’s Quality Department.
Last year at OU he researched the tribological effects
(friction, lubrication and wear of interacting parts) of
nanodiamond nanofluids. Stern and his two partners
from OU and the University of Southern California
came up with mixed results: While the nanodiamond
fluids somewhat reduced friction, they also seemed to
increase wear.
Even so, the trio was selected to present their findings
at this past May’s annual meeting and exhibition of
the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers
in St. Louis. “I got some good insight into doing
Back at Temple, last fall he served as a Diamond Peer Teacher, assisting Parsaoran
Hutapea, PhD, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, in teaching an
undergraduate class on the mechanics of solids. “Kyle combines excellent analytical
skills with a strong hands-on, common sense approach to solving engineering
problems,” says Hutapea, who then recruited Stern for his lab. Stern worked
on an innovative Defense Department-funded investigation of composite
materials that might mimic the prostate gland as part of a broader cancer
treatment research study.
Stern, who also is minoring in mathematics, expected to be doing something
radically different for Chrysler this summer. One possibility: developing analytical
models to predict system life parameters of suspension and exterior lighting
systems.
“Math is really powerful in engineering,” he says. “You can do so much with it
to understand how things work.”
Staff profile
rouzbeh Tehrani Juggles Lab management and Doctoral research
It is not hard to figure out where Rouzbeh Tehrani
was born and raised. A native of Tehran, the full-time
Temple laboratory manager and part-time doctoral
candidate was actually born on the day the Iranian
Revolution succeeded in overthrowing the shah’s
regime—February 11, 1979.
Juggling his
lab duties
and research,
Tehrani laughs,
“It isn’t a fulltime job, it’s a
full-time life.”
10
Tehrani, who since 2008 has managed all of the Civil
and Environmental Engineering Department’s eight
teaching and research labs, came to the United States
and Temple five years ago to continue the doctoral
studies he began at Dalhousie University in Halifax,
Nova Scotia.
He was just the latest of his family members to
immigrate to the United States. His grandparents fled
to America shortly after the revolution began and his
parents followed in 2005, a year after Tehrani moved
to Canada to begin earning his master’s degree.
“ere are a lot of political and social issues in Iran
that make the environment there unfriendly,” explains
Tehrani, “and I definitely wanted to do my graduate
work abroad.”
Before going to Dalhousie Tehrani actually applied to Temple’s College of
Engineering, but was not able to obtain a U.S. visa. During a visit with his parents
in Philadelphia a few years later, however, a U.S. immigration officer urged him to
reapply, and in 2007 he obtained a student visa and admission into Temple’s
doctoral program.
Hoping to earn his doctorate in 2014, Tehrani is investigating the ability of a
particular microbial strain to biodegrade PCB metabolites—which could result in
a lower-cost alternative to restoring a number of contaminated Superfund sites.
Juggling his lab duties and research, Tehrani laughs, “Isn’t a full-time job, it’s a fulltime life.”
e labs he manages range from one used for a general education course that
introduces non-engineering majors to environmental issues to both wet and dry
labs used by undergraduate engineering majors and graduate-level and faculty
researchers. “It’s a great opportunity to be involved in the educational system, to
work with students and teach them a little bit about the laboratories while actually
being a graduate student myself,” he says.
His duties include maintenance, with which he gets a lot of help from students,
and calibrating lab equipment. “I really love working with these instruments,” he
says. “When we get a new instrument I just want to spend my entire time here,
24/7, until I really learn it.”
Your Contributions: making a
Difference for Engineering
Students and the profession
making a Difference
more Vital than Ever: Your Support
Today, in an environment of economic and political
uncertainty, your financial support means more than
ever. As government support declines, your renewed
investment in Temple University and the College of
Engineering is vital to help us continue to:
• attract the best and the brightest students and
faculty members
• admit a student body whose depth of talent
mirrors the diversity of our society
• offer an education that is personal, experiential
and research-focused
• enable students to maintain their self-sufficiency
and seize every opportunity to make a difference
in the world.
Whether you graduated months, years or decades ago,
you understand that Temple University’s College of
Engineering is a powerful catalyst for change. When
we Owls work together, we are a force with which to
be reckoned.
You can show your support for the students who are
following in your footsteps in a variety of ways,
including:
Support the Annual Fund Contributions made to
the annual fund are used for a variety of purposes,
such as improvements to the college’s building,
purchasing new computers and other equipment and
developing courses and publications. ese gifts are
unrestricted and will be used where the need is
greatest.
Become a Conwell Society member No
group is more vital in sustaining Temple than the
members of the Russell H. Conwell Society, a
circle of leading donors who provide crucial
support to the university and set an example of
philanthropy that is inspiring to their fellow
alumni and friends.
Create an Endowed Fund Endowed funds
may be established at a variety of levels for many
different programs. ese individual funds are
established by donors who each have a vision for
the college’s future, such as scholarship or faculty
support.
Designate a planned gift You can make a
planned gift through your will, a charitable gift
annuity, life insurance or retirement plan.
Join the Corporate partners program e
College of Engineering’s Corporate Partners
Program provides local and regional companies
with a high degree of visibility on campus as well
as the opportunity to build relationships with
Temple’s top engineering students.
Fall Happy Hour
“Likewise, as an employer who is always looking
for top talent, this program--together with the
Women in Engineering (WE2) summer program—
put Temple engineering at the forefront of options
for many high school students across the country;
and, as a result, make Temple an attractive hub
for engineering recruiting. For these reasons, as
well as the mission of the WE2 program to address
the underrepresentation of females in the
engineering profession, my firm is a corporate
sponsor of WE2.”
— Scott A. mcKeown, EE ’93, Law ’99
patent attorney, Alexandria, Va.
Oblon Spivak mcClelland
maier & neustadt
If you would like to make a gift or learn more
about making a gift to the College of
Engineering, please contact me at 215-204-2537.
maureen Kuhar,
Director of Development
and Alumni Affairs
College of Engineering
Fall 2012 College of Engineering Alumni Association Events
Wednesday,September
12th
“I have financially supported
the robotics program in
a personal capacity for
several years because it
reminds me of the reason
why I chose Temple
Engineering. The summer
program excites high school
students about engineering
and gives them a flavor of Temple as a progressive
engineering school.
Saturday, October 6th
Thursday, December 6th
Homecoming pre-game Tailgate
Temple vs. South Florida
Holiday reception
Faye Majekodunmi CE ’12 (center) poses with Mrs. Ellen
Stone (left) and Mr. Christopher Whitcomb, (right) Project
Executive from Hunter Roberts Construction Company. Faye
was the recipient of both the Robert J. Stone Memorial
Scholarship and the Hunter Roberts Construction Company
Scholarship. Both scholarships are offered annually to students
at the College of Engineering.
“Along with assisting me financially, the
scholarships I have received from Temple’s
College of Engineering have inspired me
academically and professionally. They have
provided me with the motivation to do better,
study harder and make the most of my education.
It shows that someone believes in my future so
much that, they decided to invest in me. And
that is the greatest mindset that any student
could have.”
— Faye majekodunmi, CE ’12
Bowie, md.
Save the Date: October 5-7th is Homecoming Weekend!
11
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u.S. postage
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permit no. 1044
1947 n. 12th Street
philadelphia, pA 19122
FPO
Committed to environmental awareness and stewardship, Temple university has printed this publication
using Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper. FSC certification ensures that this paper contains
at least 10% post-consumer recovered fiber that was produced using timber from responsibly managed
forests and harvested in a sustainable, environmentally friendly manner.
Alumni Association Events
Holiday reception
Engineers Week reception with
Keynote Speaker Tony Schmitz, mE ’93
Senior Day BBQ
Dunk ’n Dine