With better brains, underwater drones would spend less time searching and more time finding what they’re looking for, including missing airliners believed lost at the bottom of the ocean. If Michigan Tech’s Nina Mahmoudian has her way, the next generation of autonomous underwater vehicles will have a much better chance of getting it right. The full story is available online. Published in Tech Today by Marcia Goodrich, senior content specialist |
Interesting stories about and for our students.
Known for hands-on education and leading-edge research, Michigan Tech’s stature among institutions has earned another important distinction: its proportion of industry-sponsored research, compared to other schools in the state and nation. According to National Science Foundation Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) data, Michigan Tech ranked second in the state among public institutions and is in the top 15 percent in the nation among 650-plus universities.
Why is this important?
“It means that, in addition to finding some of the next greatest discoveries, we do research that is relevant,” said Jim Baker, executive director of Innovation and Industry Engagement at Tech “And these same industry partners hire our graduates.”
Read the full news story.
Published in Tech Today by Dennis Walikainen, senior content specialist
Graduate students Ankit Vora (ECE) and Jephias Gwamuri (EMSE) co-authored “Exchanging Ohmic Losses in Metamaterial Absorbers with Useful Optical Absorption for Photovoltaics, in Scientific Reports” with Anand Kulkarni, Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) and Durdu Güney (ECE). It is available online at Scientific Reports.
Published in Tech Today.
Adam Ward’s got a lot of helping hands as he tries to determine stream and lake depths in Iowa. Through CrowdHydrology.org, anyone can read the water level off a ruler (more scientifically, stream stage off a staff gauge) and text the numbers to an online database.
The citizen scientists are helping researchers elsewhere, too—New York, Wisconsin, Utah and Michigan—and it’s all the brainchild of Ward’s colleague, Chris Lowry, an assistant professor in the Department of Geology at the University of Buffalo.
“With budget cuts proliferating, I had to figure out how to measure streams in a cheap fashion,” says Lowry. “I got a giant ruler, laminated a sign at Kinko’s and set up the first gauge using Google voicemail and help from the USGS for the texts. It worked.”
For the full news story, see CrowdHydrology.
Published in Tech Today by Dennis Walikainen, senior content specialist
Michigan Tech has found itself on the top of another national list and this one has more of an international feel to it.
ABC 10′s Keweenaw Bureau Reporter Sam Ali has the story about one of the hardest working organizations at MTU. To view the broadcast: http://abc10up.com/michigan-tech-garners-national-acclaim-for-peace-corps-program/
It’s never a snapshot of just one perspective.
On campuses across the country, students are ascending one side of a stage, shaking hands, and descending as graduates, careers and experiences and possibilities laid out before them.
These are a few snapshots of one. But not just one. Rebecca Miner is finishing her third Tech degree today, a doctorate in Rhetoric and Technical Communication. Her family is seated in a skybox in the arena while she’s up near the stage with the rest of the newly minted PhDs. It’s quiet in the arena. Warm. The only constant sound, aside from the voices calling names, is the sound of camera shutters capturing every moment ten times over.
Read the full news story.
Published in Tech Today by Kevin Hodur, content specialist
For the ninth year in a row, Michigan Technological University ranks as the number one university nationwide for the number of Peace Corps Master’s International (PCMI) students currently serving as Peace Corps volunteers. Michigan Tech has 32 graduate students overseas, earning the University top spot on the Peace Corps’ annual ranking of PCMI and Paul D. Coverdell Fellows graduate schools.
Michigan Tech has 10 different PCMI programs in three colleges and schools. The Peace Corps said that is the largest number of PCMI programs at any university in the nation.
In the PCMI program, students incorporate Peace Corps service as credit toward their master’s degree. The Coverdell Fellows Program provides returned Peace Corps volunteers with scholarships, internships in underserved American communities, and stipends to earn an advanced degree after they complete their Peace Corps service.
“One of Michigan Tech’s primary goals is to conduct innovative research and education that promotes sustainable economic and social development worldwide,” said Tech President Glenn Mroz. “Our Peace Corps Masters International Program is clearly achieving that goal. It speaks to Michigan Tech’s commitment that a school the size of ours is consistently first in the nation in the number of Peace Corps volunteers.”
For the full story, see Peace Corps.
Published in Tech Today by Jenn Donova, director of news and media relations
Michigan Tech has given its 2014 Bhakta Rath Research Award to two scientists who have developed a fast, effective and inexpensive way to purify synthetic DNA and peptide molecules.
Their discovery could ultimately be used to heal. Peptides have the potential to fight some of the most intractable diseases, and DNA is a critical element of gene therapy.
Read the full news story.
Published in Tech Today by Marcia Goodrich, senior content specialist
The Department of Biomedical Engineering announces the recipients of the 2014 Kenneth L. Stevenson Research Fellows. Two undergraduate and two graduate students are selected annually to receive these competitive research fellowships. The Stevenson Fellows program provides an opportunity for upper-level undergraduate and early-stage graduate students to spend the summer in a total immersion research experience in a biomedical engineering research laboratory. The annual competition is open to students from all academic departments who wish to explore biomedical engineering research and provides a generous research stipend. |
“A Village in Bangladesh” will be presented by S. M. Mizanur Rahman, Tuesday, April 22, at 5 p.m., in EERC 103.
Mizanur will present the development disaster caused by shrimp farming in his village and how small producers are left out of the economic development of this product. He will also talk about his work in the community and “The Motorcycle Project,” an idea he developed to provide capital support and planning skills to the local people, which he plans on implementing this summer. He is now pursuing his PhD in Environmental and Energy Policy at Michigan Tech.
Published in Tech Today.