Category: Students

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine mentioned Michigan Tech in a press release announcing the winners of the 2021-2022 TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program University Design Competition for Addressing Airport Needs.

A four-member team from the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering at Michigan Technological University placed third in the Runway Safety/Runway Incursions/Runway Excursions Including Aprons, Ramps, and Taxiways category with its design titled, Thermal Detection System for Mitigating Runway Incursions at Non-Towered Airports.

The team included undergraduate students Clark Fadoir, Mary Ollis, Greg Porcaro, and Drew Vega.

Dr. Audra Morse served as faculty advisor to the Built World Enterprise at Michigan Tech.

The team describes the process for developing their hypothesis:

The team utilized Design Thinking to develop an effective solution. First, the team communicated and empathized with aviation professionals to learn challenges and concerns they are experiencing. Next, the team used the feedback from professionals to define the problem of runway incursions at non-towered airports. The team then created two prototypes to decrease runway incursions and used a decision matrix to evaluate and eventually choose the most effective solution. The design was then sent out to professionals to provide feedback and suggestions.

Clark Fadoir, Mary Ollis, Greg Porcaro, Drew Vega

Upon the recommendation of the Structural Engineering Institute, Arman Tatar has been selected by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) as the recipient of the 2022 O.H. Ammann Research Fellowship in Structural Engineering.

The award will allow Tatar to purchase the necessary parts and material to pursue his original research topic in addition to the research he is currently conducting under Dan Dowden’s supervision.

By Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering.

Michigan Tech student, staff, and faculty researchers planned, implemented, and attended the NSF-sponsored Build and Broaden Indigenous Agriculture and Food Sovereignty Symposium at Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and Northern Michigan University from May 20-22, 2022.

Among the planning team were co-principal investigator (co-PI) Valoree Gagnon (CFRES/GLRC), Erika Vye (GLRC), Emily Shaw (CEGE), Shelby Lane-Clark (CFRES), Elizabeth Brown (SS) and Kate McGowen (CFRES).

The event was led by the Intertribal Agriculture Council (principal investigator Dan Cornelius); Northern Michigan University (co-PI Martin Reinhardt); Ferris State University (co-PI Scott Herron); and the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community. The Michigan Tech team is currently writing the Proceedings document, which will be publicly available later this summer at food-sovereignty.com.

By College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science.

Several Great Lakes Research Center (GLRC) affiliated faculty, research staff and students represented Michigan Tech on May 14 to May 20 at the 2022 Joint Aquatic Science Meeting (JASM) in Grand Rapids, Michigan. JASM is the world’s largest gathering of aquatic scientists, students, practitioners, resource agency staff and industry representatives.

This year, the GLRC was a Silver Sponsor for the event and had a booth in the exhibit hall. Those who presented include:

Oral Presentations

• John Lenters (GLRC): “The Great Lakes Evaporation Network: Successes and Challenges of a 14-Year Binational Collaboration”
• Jill Olin (BioSci): “Nutritional consequences of intraspecific diet variation in a marine carnivore”
• Gord Paterson and Dalton Norris (BioSci): “Trophic ecology and Hg bioaccumulation among Lake Superior Lake Trout morphotypes” (IAGLR board administration)
• Megan Berberich (BioSci): “Sediment microbial communities, organic matter, and methane biogeochemistry across multiple reservoirs in the midwestern United States”
• Michelle Kelly (BioSci): “Habitat heterogeneity promotes linked C and N cycling in streams”
• Ara Hakim (CEGE): “Using Ensemble-based Data Assimilation to Improve Hydrodynamic Modeling for Lake Erie Surface Temperature Short-term Forecast”
• Ben Reuss (CEGE): “Modeling Metabolism in a Shallow, Hypereutrophic, Polymictic Lake”
• Amy Marcarelli (BioSci): “Transforming Our Understanding of Nitrogen Fixation Across Aquacapes” (in collaboration with Robinson W. “Wally” Fulweiler, Boston University, and Thad Scott, Baylor University)
• Erin Eberhard (BioSci): “Heterogeneity of Nutrient Limitation and N Cycling Across Wetland-Stream-Lake Interfaces of Lakes Superior and Huron”
• Longhuan Zhu (CEGE): “Coastal Erosion along Lake Michigan under Climate Change”
• Xing Zhou (CEGE): “Incorporation of microcystin production improves Lake Erie cyanobacterial bloom toxin forecasts”

Poster Presentations

• Trista Vick-Majors (BioSci): “Physicochemical drivers of microbial ecosystems in Antarctic subglacial aquatic environments”
• Maci Quintanilla (BioSci): “Impact of ice-cover on organic carbon biogeochemistry in a temperate freshwater system”
• Vanessa Cubillos Tellez (BioSci): “Under Ice Photosynthetic Primary Production and Dark Carbon Fixation in a Temperate Freshwater System”

Sessions

• Amy Marcarelli (BioSci) organized the symposium “Integrating perspectives on nitrogen fixation across the aquascape” and an integrative event called “Aquatic N2-Fixation Research Coordination Network.”
• Jim Junker (BioSci) was a session chair for “NEON data: leveraging continental scale data to advance freshwater science.”

In addition, Michael Gretz (BioSci) attended as an executive committee and board of trustees member representative for the Phycological Society of America administration.

Other Michigan Tech representatives included GLRC Director Tim Havens (CS/GLRC/ICC) and Jamey Anderson (GLRC/MRAF).

By Great Lakes Research Center.