U.S. Congressman Fattah
kicks off summer programs for teachers
 United
States Congressman Chaka Fattah kicked
off the opening ceremonies for Drexel's GK-12, RET (Research Experience for Teachers) and MSP summer programs
July 10. In addition to Congressman Fattah, School District
of Philadelphia Deputy Chief Academic Officer Albert
Bichner, UPenn Dean of Engineering Eduardo Glandt, Drexel
President Constantine Papadakis, Provost Stephen Director
and Dean Selçuk Güçeri welcomed teachers from throughout
Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The programs educate
teachers about engineering, helping to mold their experiences
into lessons they can implement in their classrooms.
For more information, contact Joanne
Ferroni at (215) 895-2288 (GK-12, RET, MSP) or Holly
Burnside at (215) 895-6630 (RET-NANO).
New
grants in emerging technology areas
Drs. Young Cho (PI), Alex
Fridman and Alex
Gutsol (all of MEM) were recently awarded
a Department of Energy grant entitled, "Application
of Electrical Field and Plasma for Advanced Cooling
and Water Recovery." This research technology will
enhance the efficiency of heat exchangers through the
reduction of scale buildup, as well as effectively and
inexpensively provide drinking water in developing countries.
The budget for this 3-year project is $450,000. Dr. Jaydev P. Desai (PI, MEM) and his team comprising
of Dr. Alan Lau (MEM), Dr.
Andres Castellanos (Dept. of Surgery, DUCOM), Dr.
William Meyers (Chair, Dept. of Surgery, DUCOM),
Dr. Ari
Brooks (Dept. of Surgery, DUCOM), and Dr. Doug James (Carnegie
Mellon University), were recently awarded a 4-year NIH
R01 grant totaling $1,225,602 for the project entitled:
"Data-driven Real Time Surgical Simulation from
Reality-Based Soft Tissue Models." The goal of
this project is to develop reality-based soft-tissue
models that can be combined with numerical simulation
models and supporting computational algorithms for real-time
haptic (sense of touch) and visual feedback in a surgical
simulator environment for potentially training a new
generation of residents and surgeons.
New CoE faculty introduced
Drexel
University welcomes six new faculty members to its College
of Engineering:
 Dr.
Yuanfang Cai, CS;
Ph.D. from the University of Virginia; research goals:
software engineering - to develop design
representations and automated, quantitative analysis
techniques to reason about design structure and related
outcomes early in the development process.
 Dr.
Kenneth Lau, CBE; Ph.D.
from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; research
interests: novel materials
development for tangible, value-added applications,
polymers, thin films, coatings, surface design and engineering.
 Dr.
Alisa Morss, MEM; Ph.D. from Harvard-MIT
Division of Health Sciences & Technology; research
interests: mechanical and biochemical interaction between
cells and proteins of the blood vessel wall in health
and disease.
 Dr.
Min Jun Kim, MEM;
Ph.D. from Brown University; research interests: experimentally
investigating biological transport phenomena in micro/nanoscale
fluidic devices to produce new types of bio/micro/nanotechnology.
 Dr.
Gail Rosen, ECE; Ph.D. from Georgia
Institute of Technology; research interests: biological signal
processing, bioinformatics, reverse-engineering biology,
audio signal processing, sensor array processing, sensor
fusion, nonwave and wave source localization and adaptive
filtering.
 Dr.
John Walsh, ECE; Ph.D. from Cornell
University; research interests: convergence
and performance analysis of turbo decoding/estimation/equalization
and belief propagation, interactions between interconnected
adaptive devices, and channel shortening.
Summer
Engineering Experience at Drexel (SEED) begins
 High school
students entering their sophomore, junior and senior years are
participating in this year's SEED program. SEED is
a one-week summer program that introduces engineering through
classes, hands-on labs, demonstrations and industry tours.
Activities are conducting by faculty and staff from each CoE
department: Biomedical, CAEE, CBE, CS, ECE, MSE and MEM. All seven sessions
of SEED scheduled for this summer have been
filled
Students
place third in Disney's ImagiNations Universy Design
Competition
 Matthew
Fonda, a CAEE major, and Kristy Pron, a digital media major, won third
place in the Disney
ImagiNations Design Competition on June 7. Their
proposed new Disney attraction "East Australian
Current Express - Top Sides Tour" featured a ride
that would transport families across the park to Epcot's
world showcase. Fonda and Pron were each awarded a $1,000
scholarship from Disney Imagineering. They also interviewed
for an internship with the company.
Concrete
Canoe team finishes in top ten
 Drexel
placed 10th out of 23 colleges and universities competing
as finalists in the 19th Annual Concrete Canoe Competition
held by ASCE in Stillwater, Okla. Drexel's canoe was engineered using
a high-tech, self-leveling concrete that is half the
weight of conventional concrete used in sidewalks. Of
the finalists, winners were determined by an overall
score based on design, presentation, appearance and
performance in the race. The team won the Mid-Atlantic
Regional Competition in April for the ninth consecutive
year. |
