The Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering (CEGE) congratulates Noel Urban for being named the Best Journal of Great Lakes Research Associate Editor for 2021.
The Journal of Great Lakes Research is the official journal of the International Association for Great Lakes Research (IAGLR). Urban is a member of its editorial board, which includes many associate editors with a wide range of expertise.
By Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering.
During the month of May, a team from the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering (CEGE) is visiting area middle schools to introduce students to geospatial engineering with a grant funded by the Engineering Information Foundation.
The purpose of the grant is to enhance interest and increase students’ awareness of geospatial engineering by providing hands-on experiences that mimic the work of geospatial engineers while interacting with female role models in engineering. By the end of the month, the program will reach over 1,000 middle school students in Baraga, Gogebic, Houghton and Ontonagon counties.
The Geospatial Escape Trailer is the centerpiece of the outreach event, and was made possible with gifts from Atwell LLC, R.A. Smith, Seiler Instrument Geospatial, and Spalding DeDecker. The grant was written by PhD student Jess Alger and CEGE faculty: Audra Morse, Joan Chadde, Melanie Kueber Watkins, Joseph Foster, and Jeffery Hollingsworth.
By Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering.
Please join the Great Lakes Research Center in congratulating the Spring 2022 GLRC Student Research and Travel Grant recipients.
The GLRC student grants are intended to provide undergraduate and graduate students advised by GLRC members an opportunity to gain experience in writing competitive grants, to perform research they would not be able to attempt due to funding limitations or to travel to a professional conference to present a poster or paper about their research.
Student grants also provide seed research data for advisors to use in pursuing externally funded research support, and travel grants help amplify areas of research expertise at Michigan Tech. Funded students are expected to participate/volunteer for at least one GLRC activity during the grant period.
GLRC Student Travel Grant applications are accepted anytime and reviewed on the last Friday of each month. Applications must be submitted at least two weeks in advance of travel.
GLRC Student Research Grant applications are accepted three times each year: November 1, March 1 and July 1.
By the Great Lakes Research Center.
Audra Morse (CEGE) has joined the NSF International Joint Committee on Wastewater Technology.
NSF, founded in 1944 as the National Sanitation Foundation, develops public health standards and certification programs that help protect the world’s food, water, consumer products and environment. NSF joint committees propose and vote to approve NSF standards consistent with NSF’s mission; ensure standards properly address public health, safety and environmental issues; and respond to requests for interpretations of NSF standards.
By Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering.
Students from Michigan Tech’s Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering (CEGE) were recently selected as a winning team in the Waste to Base Materials Challenge, sponsored by HeroX and NASA.
Competing against teams from around the country, the CEGE students proposed a process to treat and repurpose human waste on a crewed mission to Mars. Over many iterations, they developed a resource recovery loop that integrated anaerobic digestion and harvesting microbe-produced plastic to generate a continuous material stream from onboard resources.
The MTU team includes two undergraduate students, Kathryn Krieger and Corbin Sullivan, and two graduate students, Azmat Naseem and Brian Rivers. The team was assembled and mentored by Audra Morse (CEGE).
By Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering.
Central Michigan University (CMU) and Michigan Tech collaborate each year to offer Michigan Tech students a chance to compete in CMU’s New Venture Challenge (NVC). This showcase event provides an opportunity for students at both universities to present their businesses and network with prospective investors, mentors and partners. Student participants also compete for a total of $60,000 in prizes and in-kind services.
On Friday (April 22, 2022), four Michigan Tech teams pitched their ideas and businesses in person on CMU’s campus in Mount Pleasant. Husky Innovate team members Jim Baker (associate vice president, research administration and Husky Innovate co-director) and Lisa Casper (Husky Innovate program manager) attended to support teams and strengthen innovation/entrepreneurship connections.
Students had an opportunity to compete in either the two-minute pitch competition or the seven-minute business model competition, as well as a gallery competition where teams had tables with individual displays and took questions from attendees.
In preparing for the NVC, the students participated in a number of Husky Innovate workshops and review sessions. The students also benefited from resources and expertise available within MTEC SmartZone, the local state-funded technology business incubator, and the Upper Peninsula Regional Small Business Development Center, which is hosted by the Office of Innovation and Commercialization in collaboration with the College of Business. The results below speak to the tireless efforts of our students and the impact of the programs provided by Husky Innovate and its partners.
NVC award winners are as follows:
Congratulations to our Husky Innovate student teams for all their hard work! We are proud of your grit during the last week of the semester. Your ideas are innovative and have the potential to change the world.
Thanks go out to our distributed team of mentors and our sponsors (Pavlis Honors College, Office of Innovation and Commercialization, College of Business, College of Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Civil Engineering) for their commitment to our students. We also thank CMU and especially Julie Messing, director of the Isabella Bank Institute for Entrepreneurship, for the collaboration and congenial hospitality.
By Husky Innovate, Pavlis Honors College.
A group of three undergraduate environmental engineering students from Built World Enterprise (BWE) — Francine Rosinski, Jake McDowell and Morgan Hallberg — competed in the 32nd annual Waste Management Education Research Consortium (WERC) Design Contest. For WERC, they had to prepare a written report, oral presentation, poster presentation and bench scale demonstration. At the competition, they placed first overall in their task for the bench scale demonstration, second overall in their task, and second for the flash talk presentation.
They focused their research experiment on value-added copper smelting slag use. They were asked to recover an economically valuable material from the copper slag and/or produce a useful product from copper smelting slag that makes use of its unique properties. In the theoretical business plan, the team extracted the high content of iron from the copper slag and used the remaining material to replace sand with copper slag in ceramic tiles. This, overall, increased the sustainability and strength of ceramic tiles.
Way to represent Michigan Technological University, BWE WERC team!
By Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering.
Two Michigan Tech graduate students, Tessa Steenwinkel and Tyler LeMahieu, have been awarded National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships, and one undergraduate student, Jenna Brewer, has been given an honorable mention.
The oldest STEM-related fellowship program in the United States, the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is a prestigious award that recognizes exceptional graduate students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines early in their career and supports them through graduate education. NSF-GRFP fellows are an exceptional group; 42 fellows have become Nobel Laureates and about 450 fellows are members of the National Academy of Sciences.
The fellowship provides three years of financial support, including a $34,000 stipend for each fellow and a $12,000 cost-of-education allowance for the fellow’s institution. Besides financial support for fellows, the GRFP provides opportunities for research in national laboratories and international research.
The Graduate School is proud of these students for their outstanding scholarship. These awards highlight the quality of students at Michigan Tech, the innovative work they have accomplished, the potential for leadership and impact in science and engineering that the country recognizes in these students and the incredible role that faculty play in students’ academic success.
LeMahieu is an environmental engineering MS student under advisor Cory McDonald. LeMahieu’s proposal was titled, “Understanding Wild Rice Site Suitability in a Changing Climate.”
LeMahieu writes: “I plan to dedicate my career to bridging gaps between the scientific body and land managers. I would like to manage public and rural lands for the farmer, the logger and the hunter while managing those same lands for improved water and ecological health into perpetuity. Because fundamentally, rural land managers have the same goal in mind as those studying the environment — a useful, productive and sound ecosystem which will support and be supported by the next generation. That common ground is not always evident to both parties, but I am equipped to act as an intermediary with a foot in both worlds.”
By the Graduate School.
Mackinac Bridge Director Kim Nowack ’85 (civil engineering) has been named Woman of the Year by the Michigan Chapter of the Women’s Transportation Seminar (WTS).
According to a press release from the Michigan Department of Transportation, the award was presented to Nowack during the WTS Michigan Chapter’s 2022 Scholarship and Recognition Awards Banquet March 10 in Howell. It “honors a woman who is an outstanding role model and has contributed to the advancement of women and minorities in transportation.”
“I have admired Kim Nowack for her professionalism, her technical knowledge, her leadership, and commitment to share her knowledge with future generations about careers in engineering,” said WTS member and past Mackinac Bridge Authority (MBA) member Barbara Arens, who assisted with Nowack’s nomination. “She is a humble and admirable leader, representing women and our industry well as the executive secretary of the MBA and our iconic bridge. The WTS Michigan Chapter is proud to honor her as WTS Michigan Chapter Woman of the Year.”
By Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering.
This year’s awardees for the Graduate Student Government (GSG) Merit Awards have been decided. A total of 37 nominations were received from departments all across campus. The decision process was not an easy one, as there was a very strong pool of nominations this year. We are very grateful to all of our nominees for all of the work they put in to improve and enrich the life of our graduate students.
In the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering, Zhanping You, Distinguished Professor, Transportation Engineering, was awarded Exceptional Graduate Mentor.
Congratulations to all winners and thank you for all you have done for our graduate students.
By Graduate Student Government.