Lehigh News

Lehigh Engineering Update - June 2010

Faculty
  • Alan J. Snyder, the former interim vice dean for research and graduate studies at the Penn State College of Medicine, has been named Lehigh's new vice president and associate provost for research and graduate studies. In this role, Snyder will advise the president and provost on research and graduate and postdoctoral student policies, and work with the senior leadership on strategic planning and research initiatives. Snyder's research career has focused mainly on the development, design and testing of mechanical circulatory support systems for patients suffering heart failure. His work has spanned the theoretical consideration of homeostatic mechanisms and the highly practical aspects of design, development and clinical evaluation. For his research accomplishments, he has been recognized as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. Snyder, who was chosen after a national search, will begin at Lehigh on August 2.
  • A research article written in 2004 by Mayuresh Kothare, R.L. McCann Professor of chemical engineering, and his former student Ashish Pattekar, was recognized this May by Thomson Reuters Science Watch, a company that analyzes the influence of research papers. According to Thompson, the paper, A microreactor for hydrogen production in micro fuel cell applications, has been cited by other researchers in the field more than any other -- a significant measure of the article's influence. Pattekar received his Ph.D. from Lehigh in 2004, and is currently a researcher at the Palo Alto Research Center.
  • Martin Harmer, the director of Lehigh's Center for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, has been chosen to receive a lifetime achievement award from the American Ceramics Society at the society's 112th annual meeting in October in Houston. The award recognizes distinguished lifelong achievements involving multidisciplinary and global contributions to ceramic technology, science, education and art. Harmer, the Alcoa Foundation Professor of materials science and engineering, joined the Lehigh faculty in 1980 and has earned international acclaim for his studies of the properties of structural and electronic ceramic materials and their control at the micro- and nanoscale.
  • Rick Vinci, associate professor of materials science and engineering, has received the 2010 Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science Teaching Excellence Award for teaching mainly within a department. The recipient is selected by the Rossin Junior Fellows each spring. Vinci has received the award more than once, the last time in 2009.
  • Adjunct professor Carol Kiely has launched a Web site highlighting micrograph images from recent nano-research into the composition of lunar particles -- in essence, a 3D peek inside molecules of moondust. These particles are like tiny time capsules, says Carol, providing us with clues to all the geological processes that have occurred on the lunar surface for the past 3.5 billion years. Check out the images on the Lehigh University Moon Dust Web site at http://www.lehigh.edu/~inmndust.
Students
  • Two graduate students in chemical engineering won prizes recently at poster presentations that were held at Lehigh and at the University of Delaware. Paul S. Dimick received second place in the student poster competition at the Spring Symposium of the Catalysis Society of Metropolitan New York, and Julie Molinari took second place at the annual student poster competition of the Catalysis Club of Philadelphia.
  • Recent ISE graduate Nick Kastango '10 has written an article that was published in the May 2010 issue of Industrial Engineer magazine, the monthly publication of the Institute of Industrial Engineers. The article, titled Collaboration makes the process better, explores the implementation of manufacturing practices in hospital operating rooms.
  • In late April, materials science students were recognized at the annual Student Materials Society (SMS) Spring picnic. The SMS is the Lehigh University student chapter of two professional societies, ASM International and The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society. Award winners included the following:
    • Michael S. Grimes and Douglas G. Ridyard: Bradley Stoughton Student Award to outstanding seniors in the department
    • Daniel H. Bechetti, Jr.: Kahn Memorial Award to outstanding senior in the field, and Handwerk Prize to a student for outstanding achievement in the fields of chemistry, materials science and engineering or earth and environmental sciences
    • Thomas J. Nizolek: Cyril John Osborn Award to a senior student with outstanding career potential
    • George J. Ferko, V: Allen S. Quier Prize to a senior student displaying outstanding progressive scholastic achievement
    • Anthony P. Ventura: Harmer Prize for Materials Science and Engineering Citizenship
    • Wu Zhou: George P. Conard II Award to an outstanding graduate student
Alumni
  • Chairman emeritus of the Lehigh Board of Trustees Edward George Uhl '40 passed away in May at the age of 92. Following college, Uhl served as a regular officer in the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps from 1941 to 1947, during which time he is credited with the invention of the bazooka. After his military service, Uhl joined the Martin Company as a research engineer and rose progressively through its ranks, took a leadership position at the Ryan Aeronautical Company for two years, and then joined Fairchild Industries as its president in 1961. Under his leadership, Fairchild expanded its capabilities and diversified its business base into new areas. Uhl was responsible for managing development of the Matador, Bullpup and Pershing missiles; the 404, FH227, Metro, Merlin and SF340 commercial aircraft; the P5M, C119 gunship, F105 and the A10 military aircraft; and the Pegasus, ATS 6 and TDRS satellites. Active in Lehigh affairs, he served on several academic and fundraising committees, was elected to the University's Board of Trustees in 1979, and served as Chairman from 1986-1990. Uhl also received an honorary Doctor of Sciences degree from Lehigh in 1975.
  • A gift of $10 million will establish the Smith Funds for Research and Innovation in Science and Engineering at Lehigh University. Daniel E. Smith, Jr. '71, president and CEO of Sycamore Networks, Inc., and chairman of Lehigh University's Board of Trustees, and his wife, Elizabeth Riley, have established the endowment that will expand Lehigh's research capabilities and position the university to compete on a new level. A native of Nyack, N.Y., Smith graduated from Lehigh in 1971 with a B.S. in industrial engineering, and continued his studies at Harvard University, where he earned an M.B.A. in finance and general management in 1976. He served as an officer in the United States Navy from 1971-73.
  • ISE alumnae Autumn Bayles '92, senior vice president for strategic operations at the Tasty Baking Company, helped to establish the firm's new, modernized, LEED-registered (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) bakery at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Upon approval from the U.S. Green Building Council, the new, 345,000 square foot home of Tastykake will be the world's largest green bakery, featuring energy-efficient HVAC, water conservation, the use of recycled building materials and day-light harvesting, among other environmentally efficient components. As part of the launch of the new site, Bayles was interviewed by NBC-10 news in Philadelphia.
Programs
  • Noted news reporting and opinion website The Daily Beast has ranked Lehigh as the eighth most powerful college for producing leaders and innovators in the high-tech arena. According to the Web site, its writers scoured the biographies of hundreds of key technology executives from the nation's biggest companies and some of its hottest startups...to identify which colleges, compared student-for-student, have turned out the most undergraduates destined for high-tech greatness Wendell Weeks '81, CEO of Corning, and John Gardner '64, COO of Learnvest and founding partner of Cabezon Capital, were mentioned as notable alumni
  • The Easton Express-Times covered the Energy Systems Engineering Institute (ESEI) Graduate Student Research Symposium, held in Iacocca Hall on April 30. In the utility business, it's complicated because there's fewer engineering grads and even fewer with energy industry training, said Martha Dodge, senior director for smart grid at PPL, in the article. I really think these students are ready to hit the road running
  • The 40th annual Lehigh Microscopy School takes place June 6-18, 2010, in Whitaker Laboratory at Lehigh University. Engineers, scientists, technicians, and others get hands-on experience and instruction in microscopy, microanalysis, and top-of-the-line instruments. The School was founded by Lehigh faculty member Joe Goldstein in 1970. Four decades later, the School is widely recognized as the largest and best in the world. Over 5,000 engineers, scientists, and technicians have taken our courses, coming from 50 states and 33 countries.
  • Lehigh's Center for Value Chain Research (CVCR) hosted its Spring 2010 Symposium May 12-13, titled Supply Chain Collaboration: proven Strategies to Create Value. The event, an opportunity for companies to get to know some of Lehigh's best and brightest undergraduate and graduate-level students, was co-sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Roundtable of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals.

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Monday, June 07, 2010