Graduate School Newsblog

Category: News

Interesting stories about and for our students.

Graduate Research Colloquium Winners Announced

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The 2015 Graduate Research Colloquium was held on Feb. 25–26 in the Memorial Union Ballroom. Winners were announced at a banquet on Thursday, Feb. 26.

Poster Presentation award winners were:
  • First place, Ida Fonkue’s (KIP) “Acute oral ingestion of alcohol modulates muscle sympathetic neural activity differently in Caucasians and African Americans,”
  • Second place, Kaitlin Reini (SFRES) “Modeling the impacts of climate change on water quality for inland lakes in the Great Lakes Basin,”
  • Third place, Ruilong Han (CEE) “Seismic performance assessment considering aftershock hazard.”
  • Favorite Poster, Bethany Klemetsrud, (Chem Eng), “Effect of lignin content on pyrolysis bio-oil properties.”
Oral presentation award winners were:

  • First place, Jennifer Fuller (CEE) “Developing a Sustainable Process for Removal of Synthetic Hormones in Wastewater Treatment.”
  • Second place, Margo Woller-Carter (CLS) “Development of the Intelligent Graphs for Everyday Decisions Tutor.”
  • Third place, Melanie Talaga (Chem) “Diversifying Drug Development through Scaffold Engineering: A Proposed New Strategy.”
  • Talaga also was recognized for the presentation with the highest attendance.
The Graduate Research Colloquium is sponsored each spring by the Graduate Student Government. It is an opportunity for graduate students to share their research with the university community and to gain experience presenting that research to colleagues.
Originally posted in Tech Today (3/2/2015)
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GSG Travel Grant Deadline: Feb 20

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Graduate students, have you been to a conference since last May? Going to one before April 30? If you are a full time enrolled graduate student you can apply for a GSG Travel Grant to help supplement your costs. Awards of $150 of reimbursement for attending conferences and $250 for presenting either a poster or oral presentation are available. For more information and to apply, visit the GSG website.

Your advisor will need to confirm that you are a full time enrolled graduate student, you are allowed to participate in the conference and you do not have full funding to cover the costs.

All applications and the advisor eligibility must be complete by 5 p.m. on Friday Feb. 20. Not all applicants may receive awards, and your department must be in good standing with GSG to be considered. For questions, contact the GSG Treasurer, Jenn Winikus (jawiniku@mtu.edu).

Originally posted in Tech Today (2/16/2015)

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Library Skills Refresher Workshop

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Graduate students: has it been a year or two (or longer) since you have had to do any library research? Feel like your information-finding skills are a little rusty? Join us for our Library Skills Refresher workshop to brush off the dust. We will cover library services specific to Michigan Tech as well as a variety of searching techniques and strategies to help you get the most out of your research.

The workshop will be held Thursday, Feb. 12, from 2-3 p.m. in Library 242. Click here to register. Please contact Sarah Lucchesi, instruction and learning librarian, with any questions at slucches@mtu.edu or 7-3379.

Originally posted in Tech Today (2/6/2015)

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Volunteers Needed for Annual Get WISE Workshop

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The Center for Pre-College Outreach invites faculty and staff to volunteer at Get WISE (Get Women in Science and Engineering). 7th and 8th grade girls from the western Upper Peninsula are invited to spend the day at Michigan Tech, where they participate in a range of activities to reconnect them with the exciting, dynamic world of engineering. Participants compete in several​ challenges, which include projects like: building and testing a bridge with household materials, creating a device to travel across the room into target zones or designing a simple device that will stay airborne for as long as possible. The CPCO and WUP Center for Science, Mathematics and Environmental Education are excited to host this event once more for 250 young women.

Get WISE will take place on Tuesday, Feb. 24 from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the Wood Gym. Volunteers are needed to facilitate the activities, serve lunch and engage with the participants as role models. Please consider donating an hour or two of your time to make a difference in the lives of these young women. Everyone is welcome to volunteer regardless of department or engineering background and any amount of time is appreciated. For more information, contact Liz Fujita (eafujita@mtu.edu).

Originally Posted in Tech Today (1/29/2015)

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Geophysics PhD student wins award at AGU

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GMES PhD student, Elisa Piispa, has won an Outstanding Student Presentation Award at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting. The title of Elisa’s presentation was “Paleomagnetism of the 1.1 Ga Baraga-Marquette dykes (Michigan, USA)”. The AGU Annual meeting was held in San Francisco, CA, December 15-19, 2014. Piispa’s PhD advisor is Aleksey Smirnov.

Originally posted in Tech Today (1/19/2015)

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Community English Class: $20 = 7 weeks English Instruction

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This is an announcement for the upcoming Community English Class.

This low cost evening “class” has proven to be a great opportunity to learn some English, meet new friends and to get out of the house and explore our community.This is especially true for people new to the community where English is a second language, but this opportunity is certainly not limited to newcomers or non-English speakers.

While designed for the spouses of international faculty, this class is open to graduate students, their partners, and anyone who wants to become more engaged in their community.

Those interested should email <comlanguage@mtu.edu> to register, or contact <carrie@mtu.edu> for more details. The program is taught by the Michigan Tech IESL program faculty, supported by the Michigan Tech Office of the Provost, and sponsored by the Dual Career Program.

Night Owl Leaflet Spring 2015

Michigan Tech News Article from Dec 2013

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Change in Portage Lake Lift Bridge Closures

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The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) will close the US-41/M-26 Portage Lake Lift Bridge between Houghton and Hancock for 10 hours beginning at 9 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 17.

The bridge is scheduled to reopen at 7 a.m. on Sunday, Jan.18. The hockey game on Saturday, Jan. 17, has been moved to 5:07 p.m. to accommodate Huskies fans north of the bridge. In case of a weather delay, an alternate bridge closure date of Jan. 24 has been set.

Short Closures Schedule Change
The contractor has notified MDOT the previously scheduled four two-hour closures for Jan. 20, 21, 22, and 23 from 2 to 4 a.m. will need to be rescheduled. The two-hour closures will be announced at a later date.

In addition to the Saturday, Jan. 17 closure, motorists should expect:

  • Nearly 170 intermittent 15- to 20-minute closures from January to March, between the 7 p.m. and 6 a.m.
  • One 11-and-a-half-hour closure on March 21 from 9 p.m. to 8:30 a.m. with an alternate date of March 28 in case of weather delay.

For more information, visit the bridge construction website or contact Travis Pierce at tlp@mtu.edu.

Originally posted in Tech Today (1/14/2015)
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Fund Drive for Sanaz Nezami Gravestone

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A fundraising campaign to pay for a gravestone for Sanaz Nezami is nearing the halfway mark in its efforts to raise $5,000. The Iranian Community at Michigan Tech is working to support the fund drive, which was started by one of the nurses who cared for Sanaz at Marquette General Hospital in Dec. 2013.

Nezami died as a result of injuries caused by her husband, who has since been convicted of second-degree murder.  She was about to begin graduate classes at Michigan Tech when she was beaten to death.
“Sanaz’s tragic death was a big shock to all of us,” said Sara Alian, a PhD student in the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science and president of the Iranian Community at Michigan Tech. “While no member of the Iranian Community at Michigan Tech had yet met her, we immediately felt as if she were a part of our small community as soon as the sad news was shared with us.”Like other Michigan Tech members, we learned about the beauty of Sanaz’s personality, the benevolence of her family in donating her organs and the sympathy and caring of the nurses and medical teams at Marquette General Hospital who went out of their way to connect her to her family in Iran during the last days of her life. I appreciate and strongly support the campaign to honor Sanaz by raising money for a gravestone for her. That’s the least we can do to honor her legacy.”

Anyone wishing to donate can do so at the crowdfunding site, CrowdRise.

Originally posted in Tech Today (1/13/2015)

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Michigan Tech vs. Northern Michigan Blood Drive Jan. 15

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The Michigan Tech vs. Northern Michigan Blood Drive will take place on Thursday, Jan. 15, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the East Reading Room of the Library. All of the blood collected by the UP Regional Blood Center stays in the Upper Peninsula to help supply our local communities in need. We hope to see you there. For questions, contact Whitney at wmborosk@mtu.edu.

Originally posted in Tech Today (1/12/2015)

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