College of Engineering Blog

by Mark Wilcox

The FCA Foundation, the philanthropic arm of FCA US LLC has donated $30,000 to create a week-long summer youth program at Michigan Tech, designed to encourage young women to consider careers in automotive engineering.

Jody Hand, a Michigan Tech alumna and FCA interior engineer, was on the Tech campus Wednesday to present a check that will create the FCA Women in Automotive Engineering Summer Youth Program in July of next year.

The new program will focus on increasing the engineering talent pipeline for women in the automotive industry. The FCA Foundation is the sole sponsor of the summer program and FCA will provide female role model speakers aimed at inspiring young women to become engineers.

Stephen Williams[/caption]Stephen L. Williams, head of safety compliance and product analysis for FCA North America said the donation reflects FCA’s strong commitment to developing a diverse workforce. He said FCA invests in a wide variety of education and training initiatives to help students — especially women and underrepresented minorities— obtain the technical skills in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) vital to the future.

“Although women purchase 60 percent of all vehicles and influence nearly 85 percent of all car-buying decisions, enrollment of women in baccalaureate engineering programs remains stubbornly low at around 18 percent,” Williams said.

“By Sponsoring the FCA Women in Automotive Engineering Summer Youth Program at Michigan Tech, we hope to encourage promising young women to consider engineering as a field of study and a career in the automotive industry.”

Cody Kangas, director of Tech’s Center for Pre-College Outreach said the WIAE will introduce talented female high school students, with high academic potential in science and math, to careers in automotive engineering. He said students will be exposed to several pivotal topics that make up the field of automative engineering.

“We are grateful to the FCA Foundation for investing in the future of young women,” Kangas said.

“Engineering as a whole is commonly known to be a male-dominated field, thus automotive engineering often becomes overlooked by aspiring young female professionals.”

Kangas said the WIAE serves specifically to engage high-achieving young women to experience the automotive engineering field in a hands-on, discovery-based learning environment with their peers.

“Our goal is to encourage them to consider the immense possibilities that make up the automotive industry.”

Michigan Tech and FCA have a long partnership dating at least back to the 1970s. FCA Has supported a wide range of activities across campus including scholarships, capital projects, senior design and enterprise programs, student organizations, sponsored research, advisory board membership, recruiting support, youth programs, diversity initiatives and more.

by Pavlis Honors College

The Michigan Space Grant Consortium, of which Michigan Tech is a member, will host its annual conference at the University of Michigan on Oct. 31. MSGC supports student work in space-related science and technology—as well as STEM disciplines—in Michigan.

There is currently a call for lecture and poster presentations. Registration is free but required for planning purposes. The registration deadline date is Oct. 19 and travel assistance is available for students. To register and for more information, please visit Michigan Space Grant

The Michigan Space Grant Consortium announces funding opportunities in the following categories: Undergraduate Fellowship, Graduate Fellowship, Pre-College Education, Public Outreach, Teacher Training and Research Seed Grant. Only U.S. citizens are eligible to apply for fellowship grants. The internal Michigan Tech deadline is noon on Nov. 11. Specific information regarding Michigan Tech’s requirements and submission procedures can be found here.

Note: Proposals must be submitted electronically to MSGC only after being reviewed by the Pavlis Honors College and Michigan Tech’s Sponsored Programs Office

For more information contact Paige Hackney, phackney@mtu.edu or 7-4371 in the Pavlis Honors College.

To read announcements, submission requirements and to submit a proposal following an internal review, visit the MSGC website.

Dr. George A. Hazelrigg is the Deputy Division Director of Civil, Mechanical & Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI) at the National Science Foundation. He presented two special seminars at Michigan Tech on Thursday, September 24 for faculty and students. His visit to Michigan Tech was sponsored by the Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics, and the College of Engineering.

See the Flyer: Special Seminars: Dr. George A. Hazelrigg

Thursday, September 24, 2015: 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Title: The Engineer as a Decision Maker
Dow 641
TARGET AUDIENCE: GRADUATE STUDENTS & FACULTY

See the Video: Engineering Michigan Tech Channel on Vimeo Video: The Engineer as a Decision Maker

Abstract
We currently think of engineers as problem solvers, and we build our engineering curricula around this model. But what defines engineering as distinct from other disciplines is design, and design is all about decision making, not problem solving. Decision making, unlike problem solving, demands prediction and preferences, and is always done in the presence of uncertainty and risk. As a result, our current engineering curricula do not adequately prepare engineering students for their careers as engineers. Because of this failing, many of the methods we teach and practice provide quite poor results. This talk will illustrate shortcomings of the current engineering curricula and point to avenues for improvement.

Thursday, September 24, 2015; 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Title: Framing Your Research Project
MEEM 112
TARGET AUDIENCE: NEW & ESTABLISHED FACULTY FRAMING YOUR RESEARCH PROJECT

Abstract:
While the overall success rate for proposals submitted to the National Science Foundation and other Federal agencies tends to be rather low, for well written proposals, it can be rather high. Furthermore, it is rather easy to identify the key elements of a well written proposal. Top among these for NSF are a well written and concisely stated research objective and a plan to accomplish the stated objective. Although this sounds both obvious and simple to achieve, surprisingly few principal investigators meet this requirement. This talk will focus on how to frame a research project in a way that will dramatically increase the PI’s probability of success. It will distinguish between science, mathematics and engineering, and discuss the nature of fundamental research underlying each. It will then present templates for framing research projects.

GEORGE A. HAZELRIGG
Bio:
George Hazelrigg enjoyed designing and building things when he was young, so he decided to go to college to study engineering. He obtained a BS in mechanical engineering from Newark College of Engineering (now New Jersey Institute of Technology) and went to work for Curtiss-Wright. There he found that his education had utterly destroyed his abilities to do engineering design. So he felt it necessary to get a master’s degree. Hecompleted an MS in mechanical engineering, also from NCE, but still hadn’t regained his design abilities. While getting his MS, however, he did some teaching and liked it. So he figured that if he couldn’t do design, the next best thing would be to teach it. Five years later he had obtained MA, MSE, and PhD degrees in aerospace engineering from Princeton University. Now, in addition to not knowing how to do design, he couldn’t teach it either. For the next 25 years he roamed industry and academe in an attempt to understand the theory of engineering design, including time spent at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, General Dynamics, Princeton University and a consulting firm of which he was a co-founder. He also spent a year in Korea helping to found the Systems Engineering Department of Ajou University. He joined the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1982 as program director for the Engineering Design program, providing support to others in the field. In January 1996 he did a stint as Station Science Leader of the US South Pole station. In 2004 he became Program Director for the NSF Manufacturing Machines and Equipment program, and then Deputy Division Director of NSF’s Civil, Mechanical & Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI) Division. He also served as Program Director of the Sensors and Sensing Systems program. For relaxation he spends his weekends soaring over the Shenandoah Valley as a certified flight instructor in gliders (CFI-G) with about 1,800 total flying hours.

Barbara Oakley, a professor of industrial and systems engineering at Oakland University and author of several books, spoke at Michigan Tech Sept. 3 for the First Year Engineering and Computer Sciences Lecture. She presented a talk on “Learning How to Learn” at the Rozsa Center to over 1200 students.

Oakley also met with faculty in a presentation about her MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). This course is one of the most popular courses in the world, with well over half a million students in its first six months alone. Learning How to Learn is based on the book A Mind for Numbers. Oakley’s latest book is “A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel in Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra).”

Oakley herself has learned from experience to apply the perspectives of many fields to learning and to life. Originally intending to become a linguist, she earned her bachelor’s degree in slavic languages and literature. After working for the Army as a signal officer, she returned to school to study engineering so that she could better understand the communications equipment that the Army used.

She earned a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering and worked as a translator on Russian trawlers in the Bering Sea. Oakley also spent a season as the radio operator at the South Pole Station in Antarctica, where she met her husband, Philip. They moved to the Detroit area, where she earned a master’s degree in electrical and computer engineering and a doctorate in systems engineering. She has been teaching at Oakland University ever since.

See the Video of Barbara Oakley: Learning How to Learn

The Pavlis Honors College and the Office of Innovation and Industry Engagement held a workshop for faculty, staff and students to consider participating in an Innovation Corps (I-Corps) workshop, offered through the NSF funded I-Corps Sites Program. This workshop offered a valuable opportunity to advance technology-focused business start-up ideas towards commercialization and follow up on funding through SBIR, STTR and private investment. The program is also open to community innovators.

The workshop was conducted in August over a four-week period. Participants also worked on customer discovery. The team-based program structure is similar to the national program that NSF has developed with the help of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs for early-stage technology start-ups. This was a great opportunity for teams to determine and document the commercial potential of their technology through customer discovery using the Business Model Canvas and Lean Start-up technique.

Graduates of this I-Corps Site Program workshop will be better positioned to successfully apply to the National I-Corps program, and graduates of the national program have gone on to achieve higher rates of SBIR/STTR awards than the general population. The program is transformative based on how they approach their research, teaching and other projects they engage in.

The teaching team included Jim Baker, John Diebel and Mary Raber, all of whom have been involved as leaders of technology startups, have participated in the NSF I-Corps training as mentors and who have been trained in the Lean Start-up methodology. Also a team of mentors experienced in the start-up process were available to help navigate the customer discovery process.