Graduate School Newsblog

Author: Debra Charlesworth

Award Recipients Announced for NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program

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The results of the 2010 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) competition have been announced. Michigan Tech applauds six of its student applicants who received Fellow Awards this year:

  • Kaitlyn (Reed) Bunker (Electrical Engineering)
  • Nicole Colasacco-Thumm (Geosciences/Climate Dynamics)
  • Jared Cregg (Biomedical Engineering)
  • Ashley Thode (Civil Engineering)
  • Eli Vlaisavljevich (Bioengineering)
  • Samantha Wojda (Biomedical Engineering)

Fellows benefit from a three-year annual stipend of $30,000 along with a $10,500 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees, a one-time $1,000 international travel allowance and the freedom to conduct their own research at any accredited US or foreign institution of graduate education they choose.

Six Michigan Tech students were recognized with honorable mention:

  • Sarah Gray (Biomedical)
  • Katherine Becker (Materials Science)
  • Brian Devree (Biology)
  • Katelyn FitzGerald (Geological Engineering, graduate student)
  • Joseph Licavoli (Engineering – Metallurgical, graduate student)
  • Peter Radecki (Mechanical Engineering)

As the oldest graduate fellowship of its kind, the GRFP has a history and reputation of selecting recipients who achieve high levels of success in their future academic and professional careers. To be eligible for the NSF GRFP, students must:

  • be a US citizen, US national or permanent resident alien
  • be in a research-focused Master’s or PhD program in an NSF-supported field
  • be in the final year of an undergraduate program, first year graduate student or first semester of second year in graduate school (no more than 12 months of graduate courses).

An informative session on applying to the 2011 NSF GRFP will be held at 6 p.m., Wednesday, April 14, in Fisher 130. Contact Jodi Lehman for more information.

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Call for 2010 Rath Award Nominations

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The Vice President for Research is accepting nominations for the Bhakta Rath Research Award, which was made possible by an endowment from Bhakta B. Rath and his wife, Sushama Rath. The award offers an opportunity to promote and reward excellence in scientific and engineering research in the field of physical and natural sciences and engineering. View Tech’s research website for complete submission guidelines. Nominations will be accepted until 4 p.m., Friday, April 30.

Posted in Tech Today

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Alumnus Endows Bhakta Rath Research Award

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When Bhakta B. Rath was earning his master’s degree in metallurgical and materials engineering at Michigan Tech in 1958, the US was an undisputed world leader in science and technology. Now he’s the associate director of research and head of the Materials Science and Component Technology Directorate at the US Naval Research Laboratory, and Rath worries about a declining interest in this country in studying science and technology.

So he and his wife, Sushama Rath, have endowed the Bhakta Rath Research Award to motivate Michigan Tech faculty and doctoral students to conduct the kind of research that will meet the nation’s needs and the challenges of emerging technologies. The annual award will be $2,000, split between a graduate student and his or her faculty advisor.

Rath’s gift supports the strategic direction of Michigan Tech: to grow and strengthen its research enterprise and graduate program.

Published in Tech Today

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Grad Student Takes a Silver in MRS Science as Art Contest

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Chee Huei Lee, a physics graduate student and research assistant, took a second place award in the Materials Research Society’s popular Science as Art competition, held at the 2009 MRS Fall Meeting in Boston.

Lee produces boron nitride nanotubes in a variety of shapes and sizes using catalytic chemical vapor deposition on a silicon substrate. He created “Dandelion Parachute Ball in the Nano World” using image processing software such as Photoshop to combine multiple scanning electron microscope images of the nanotubes.

“It is like playing a jigsaw puzzle game with no absolute rules,” says Lee. “And the final solution or result is only limited by imagination and creativity.”

Lee’s dandelion was chosen as one of the 50 finalists from among nearly 200 artistic entries. From the finalists, three first place and three second place winners were selected, including Lee’s entry.

From Tech Today

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Students Have Opportunity for Summer Internships

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Alert your students about the Michigan Initiative on Student NASA Exploration Research (MISNER), a program of paid internships offered by the Michigan Space Grant Consortium (MSGC).

MISNER will give undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to work over the summer of 2010 in Michigan industries connected with the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate.

Encourage students interested in NASA exploration and research to apply.

For more information, contact Jim Turnquist, director of Career Services, at 487-2313 or at jaturnqu@mtu.edu .

For instructions and application, visit MISNER .

Published in Tech Today.

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Here’s Some Tax Help

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VITA, the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, is being offered on the Michigan Tech campus again this year.

VITA is a program that was developed by the IRS and is available on university campuses across the country during each tax season. The School of Business and Economics sponsors Michigan Tech’s program.

This free service is offered from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Mondays; from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Thursdays; and from 3 to 5 p.m. on Fridays.

VITA sessions are held in Academic Office Building G010D. No appointment is necessary. You should bring your W-2s and other tax information, plus a copy of your tax return from last year.

In order to qualify as a VITA tax preparer, upper-division accounting students first complete an IRS self-study course, attend a tax seminar, and then pass an IRS test. The students prepare basic, individual income tax returns for other Michigan Tech students and for members of the local community who could not otherwise afford professional tax preparation services.

For further information, visit Vita .

Also, contact Joel Tuoriniemi at jctuorin@mtu.edu , or Anne Warrington at acwarrin@mtu.edu .

Published in Tech Today

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Safer Helmet, Safer Head

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Michigan Tech Team Takes Its Award-winning Invention to San Francisco Inventors Expo

by Jennifer Donovan, director of public relations

In the heat of a football game, a player is tackled and pounded to the ground. His head takes a mighty sideways whack. What happens next–a concussion or some other kind of traumatic brain injury–is rarely good.

Now a team of inventive engineering students from Michigan Tech has designed a new and promising protective layer for sports and motorcycle helmets. They used the human head itself as a model for building a helmet lining that mimics the body’s own tricks for deflecting blows to the head. For example, the scalp, designed for redirecting oblique impacts; the skull, for absorbing normal impacts; and the cerebral spinal fluid, for dampening the final impact on the brain.

The team was one of 16 chosen from more than 200 colleges and universities to introduce their invention at a national inventors conference in San Francisco this week. Michigan Tech undergraduates and graduate students will be demonstrating a prototype Enhanced BioMorphic (EBM) helmet layer at March Madness for the Mind, sponsored by the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) and Inventors Digest magazine at the Exploratorium science museum.

In their prototype, they simulate the skull with a light composite sandwich shell, the scalp with thin elastic discs, and the spinal fluid with a soft padding system. The protective layer can be inserted into a helmet in addition to the regular helmet liner. It protects the head inside the helmet against both oblique and normal impacts.

“Normal helmets are designed for direct, straight-on impact,” explains Wayne Bell, a graduate student at Michigan Tech and helmet team member. “They aren’t designed to protect against rotational acceleration, even though ‘normal’ impacts in football often involve rotation.”

In an online competition, viewers have already voted a two-minute video about the helmet produced by Michigan Tech’s team one of the top three videos of student inventions. The top three videos will be shown today. A panel of independent reviewers and NCIIA and Inventors Digest staff will choose the winning video, and a People’s Choice Award will be presented to the team that receives the most votes from conference attendees.

The Michigan Tech team and advisor Gopal Jayaraman, a professor of mechanical engineering-engineering mechanics at Michigan Tech, have been designing, building, testing and refining prototype helmets for several years. Their latest prototype has passed drop-test standards set by the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE), preventing damage at 155 times the force of gravity (155 g’s), the maximum load the brain can take without sustaining injury. They are also evaluating their invention using a mathematical model that enables them to optimize performance based on the properties of the materials they use.

Michigan Tech’s Technology and Economic Development Office is working with the students to patent and license the new helmet technology. They hope to license their invention to a commercial sports equipment manufacturer, paving the way for a full-fledged athletic equipment research center at Michigan Tech.

Sponsors of the helmet research and development are Michigan Tech’s Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics, Athletics, and Exercise Science, Health and Physical Education Departments; the Michigan Universities Commercialization Initiative; and NCIIA.

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New Theses and Dissertations in the Library

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The Graduate School is pleased to announce the arrival of new theses and dissertations from our recent graduates in the J. R. Van Pelt Library and John and Ruanne Opie Library.  The names of our graduates, their degrees, advisors, and titles of their research are listed below.

Brian Beachy
Doctor of Philosophy in Forest Science
Advisor: Andrew J Storer
Dissertation title: Impacts of the Exotic Beech Bark Disease Complex in Michigan

Jessica Beachy
Doctor of Philosophy in Forest Science
Advisor: Andrew John Storer
Dissertation title: The Development of Trapping, Survey and Educational Tools for the Exotic Invasive Emerald Ash Borer (Agrilusplanipennis Fairmaire) (Coleoptera: Buprestidae)

Luke Bowman
Master of Science in Geology
Advisor: William I Rose
Thesis title: Community Perceptions of an NGO’s Impact on Disaster Preparedness in Los Planes de La Laguna, Santa Ana Volcano, El Salvador

Venkat Donuru
Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry
Advisor: Haiying Liu
Dissertation title: Design and Synthesis of Novel BODIPY Polymeric Dyes, and Redox-active Tetrathiafulvalene-Carbohydrate Conjugates for Potential Biosensing Applications

Chad Fortin
Master of Science in Applied Ecology
Coadvisors: Christopher Raymond Webster and David James Flaspohler
Thesis title: Floristic Quality as a Potential Driver of Vegetative Diversity-Productivity Relationships and Arthropod Habitat in Restored Grasslands

Bryan Franklin
Master of Science in Computer Science
Advisor: Steven R Seidel
Thesis title: Analysis and Performance of a UPC Implementation of a Parallel Longest Common Subsequence Algorithm

Valerie Fuchs
Doctor of Philosophy in Environmental Engineering
Coadvisors: John S Gierke and James R Mihelcic
Dissertation title: Nitrogen Removal and Sustainability of Vertical Flow Constructed Wetlands for Small Scale Wastewater Treatment

Alex Joseph Varghese
Master of Science in Electrical Engineering
Advisor: Paul L Bergstrom
Thesis title: Fabrication of Piezo Resistive Strain Sensor for Orthopedic Fracture Implant System

Jodi Lehman
Doctor of Philosophy in Rhetoric and Technical Communication
Advisor: Patricia J Sotirin
Dissertation title: International Teachers in the American Classroom: Deposing the Myth of Monolingualism

Ruben Otoniel Matias Gomez
Master of Science in Geology
Advisor: William I Rose
Thesis title: Volcanological Map of the 1961-2009 Eruption of Volcande Pacaya, Guatemala

Julian Mills-Beale
Master of Science in Civil Engineering
Advisor: Zhanping You
Thesis title: New Test Procedures for Aggregate Specific Gravities and Absorption

Srichand Pendyala
Master of Science in Computer Science
Advisor: Robert Louis Pastel
Thesis title: Sketch Recognition through Shape Based Interaction

Ratul Saha
Doctor of Philosophy in Biological Sciences
Advisor: Susan T Bagley
Dissertation title: UV Disinfection of Metalworking Fluids: Analysis Using Molecular Tools

Steven Vormwald
Master of Science in Computer Science
Advisor: Steven M Carr
Thesis title: Predicting Remote Reuse Distance Patterns in Unified Parallel C Applications

Fuyu Xu
Doctor of Philosophy in Forest Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology
Advisor: Chandrashekhar Pralhad Joshi
Dissertation title: Molecular Mechanism of Cellulose Biosynthesis in Plants

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Sixth Annual ESC/BRC Graduate Research Forum

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The Sixth Annual ESC/BRC Graduate Research Forum be held from 3 to 5 p.m., Friday, March 26, in the atrium of the Forestry building.

Graduate students working in ecosystem science and biotechnology fields will present their research posters during the forum. Awards will be presented and pizza offered following the event.

For more information, contact Jill Fisher, program manager for the ESC, at jhfisher@mtu.edu or Mary Tassava, program manager for the BRC, at mltassav@mtu.edu .

Published in Tech Today.

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