Asheesh Lanba, graduate student in Engineering Science and Mechanics (ESM), under the advising of Dr. Reginald Hamilton, Assistant Professor of ESM, will travel to the South Dakota State University on May 16 to attend a Conference on Engineering Materials: Evaluation, Flaw Detection & Processing. While in attendance, he’ll give a presentation entitled, Localized Skein Morphology during the Martensitic Transformation in trained Shape Memory Alloys.

The Conference on Engineering materials: Evaluation, Flaw Detection and Processing at the Materials Evaluation and Testing Laboratory (METLAB) at the South Dakota State University focuses on recent developments, discoveries, modeling, testing and evaluation of engineering materials, smart materials and processing. To learn more about the conference, please visit their web site.

Charles Smith, graduate student in Engineering Science and Mechanics, has received a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. The National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) helps ensure the vitality of the human resource base of science and engineering in the United States and reinforces its diversity. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based masters and doctoral degrees at accredited US institutions. ESM Congratulates Charles for this honor.

Nathan Nalvanko, undergraduate student in Engineering Science and Mechanics was awarded first place undergraduate presenter at the Environmental Chemistry and Sciences Symposium held in early April. Congratulations Nathan!

Allison Yau, undergraduate student in Engineering Science and Mechanics, has received a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. The National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) helps ensure the vitality of the human resource base of science and engineering in the United States and reinforces its diversity. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based masters and doctoral degrees at accredited US institutions. ESM Congratulates Allison for this honor.

Abigail Dodson, undergraduate student in Engineering Science and Mechanics, was honored as being named as first runner up to receive the 2012 Joelle Award at a reception and dinner celebration Monday, March 26 at the Nittany Lion Inn.

The Joelle Award for Women in Engineering Leadership recognizes outstanding leadership contributions by a woman student to the College of Engineering. The award is endowed by Jane and Edward Liszka in honor of Jane Liszka’s parents, Joseph and Eleanor Munafo. (Joelle is a combination of their first names). Heather Liszka, daughter of Jane and Edward Liszka, is a 1994 Engineering Science graduate, former SWE president, and founder of SCROUNGE, a computer reclamation program. Heather is currently a family practice physician. The Joelle recipient is an upper-level woman engineer who has an outstanding record of leadership, service, and citizenship that positively affect the climate for women in the College of Engineering and/or in the University.

Congratulations to the ESM Today winners. Thanks to all who presented and participated. This was an outstanding competition with very high quality papers and posters. The winners will receive information about their awards this week.

The Annual ESM Today Graduate Research Symposium was held Saturday, February 11, 2012, in the Engineering Science and Mechanics Department. The Symposium was open to all ESM graduate students. This year, the symposium honored Glen Chatfield, Alumnus of Engineering Science and Mechanics.

The 2012 winners and their award winning presentations and posters follow below.

Presentations:

Room 114
1st: Xiaoyun Ding
2nd: Michael Ian Lapsley
3rd: Yuliang Xie
3rd: Priyanka Dash

Room 116
1st: Ahmad Nawaz
2nd: Abdalla Nassar
3rd: Brian Reinhardt

Room 119
1st: Daniel Ahmed
2nd: Amber Black
3rd: Muhammand Faryad

Posters:

1st: Mengqian Lu
2nd: Asheesh Lanba
3rd: Yao Jin
3rd: Hiteshi Basantani

Edward Ventsel Mechanics Award:
Baiyang Ren

Congratulations!

Jillian Woolridge, graduate student in Engineering Science and Mechanics and an advisee of Dr. S. Ashok, Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics will travel in December to Kanpur, India and attend the 16th International Workshop on Physics of Semiconductor Devices. While attending the conference, Jillian will present a paper on her work under the photovoltaics category which summarizes her work to date on the effects of various laser processing parameters on selective emitters for use in photovoltaic application and commercialization.

Madineh Sedigh-Sarvestani, graduate student in Engineering Science and Mechanics and member of the Center for Neural Engineering, traveled in November to Washington, DC to attend the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting. While at the meeting she presented a poster entitled “Likelihood of sleep-wake states before seizure onset in rodent.” The Society of Neuroscience annual meeting is the largest gathering of the neuroscience community, hosting up to 34,000 researchers each year.

On October 1, 2011, Jay Patten, gradaute student council president, led a group of outgoing ESM graduate students, Asheesh Lanba, Brian Reinhardt, Brian Kiraly, and Steve Koytek, up Mount Monadnock located Jaffrey, New Hampshire. Mount Monadnock is 3,165 ft in elevation and known as the most hiked mountain in the United States. Having grew up near Mount Monadnock, Jay Patten was eager to reveal what southwestern New Hampshire has to offer to his friends. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't to their advantage but regardless of the rain and fog they still had a great weekend. The group plans to return to New Hampshire to hike the Presidential Range located in the White Mountains during the summer of 2012.

Daniel Ahmed, graduate student in Engineering Science and Mechanics, was selected to receive a Young Investigator Best Poster Award at the 15th International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences. Daniel was one of the three winners selected from more than six hundred posters at the conference. Daniel is a member of Professor Tony Huang’s research group. Congratulations Daniel!