Graduate School Newsblog

Category: News

Interesting stories about and for our students.

Archives’ Historical Collections Now Searchable

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A group of new online search tools has enhanced the search and discovery of historical records in the collections of the Archives.  The improved access is the result of a two-year project to improve description of the Archives’ extensive holdings of regional manuscript material. The initiative was funded through a $167,600 grant from the National Historical Records and Publications Commission, a division of the National Archives and Records Administration.

During the project, Archives’ staff conducted a box-by-box survey of its entire collection, totaling more than 7,000 cubic feet and including personal papers, diaries, organizational records, business materials, mining company records, maps, newspapers and other historical documents.  The project identified more than 700 discrete collections and created standardized descriptions, providing information about the size, content and dates of coverage for each collection. These descriptions have been revealed to potential researchers throughout the world via a number of online tools.

A full listing of the collections, including collection number, title and brief description, is now available on the Michigan Tech Archives blog. See Collections.

Catalog records for each collection are also available in the Van Pelt and Opie Library catalog. See Catalog.

Researchers may limit their searches by the location “Archives Manuscript Collection.” These records allow searching of collection names, keywords in their brief descriptions and histories, as well as standardized subject headings. Versions of these catalog records are also searchable through WorldCat, an international bibliographic database maintained by the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), a global cooperative of libraries, archives and museums.

To search the main WorldCat catalog, see WorldCat.

As an OCLC member, Michigan Tech community members may also search these records through the FirstSearch version of WorldCat. See FirstSearch.

This allows researchers to limit type to “Archival Materials” and limit availability to library code “EZT” for Michigan Tech archival collection records. For further information, contact the Archives at 487-2505 or at copper@mtu.edu.

Published in Tech Today.

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Geology Graduate Student Helps National Geographic Talk About African Rifts

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When National Geographic needed some explanation about the Albertine Rift, a geological formation in Africa, they came to a Michigan Tech graduate student. Again.

It’s the second time that Alex Guth, a PhD student in geology, has been tapped by the world-famous magazine to offer geological expertise in Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

National Geographic sought an answer to why such a geological rift exists and its impact on the local people–a people in crisis–and the delicate ecosystem that coexists. Guth’s expertise includes the rift valley and its extremes in topography caused by the East African Rift System, where the Nubian plate is moving west away from the Somalian plate.

“There are mountain ranges with a mountain forest and a rain forest extremely close by,” she says. “The extreme topography, caused by the rift, impacts the animals. They can’t move, since the area around them won’t sustain them.” The same can be said of the people, many of whom live in a densely populated region near the city of Goma and Lake Kivu, which is poisoned by volcanic gasses.  “And the fishing in nearby Lake Albert can’t sustain the population, which helps fuel conflict,” Guth says.

That conflict, between the Bashali people, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and invading Tutsi, Hutu, and Hunde, has become so intense that other research teams have left early. “They were murdering women, specifically,” Guth says, “and recent elections have made the future ‘iffy’ at best. Intertribal conflicts, and now terrorism–there was a bombing in Nairobi Monday–make the work there even more dangerous.” The people initially moved to the valley because of the fertile land, but they have over-logged it, and the subsequent population boom created a land shortage, according to the National Geographic article, “Africa’s Albertine Rift,” which appeared in the November 2011 issue.

The magazine came to Guth for the geologic story, and she chose to tell them about the evolution of the rift valley and the “intense area,” replete with volcanoes, one of which destroyed great parts of Goma. “Working with them was interesting,” she says. “My research actually appears on a poster that is in the magazine, and they also wanted me to look at definitions they had used for a children’s edition of the magazine, for quality control.” She also had to do a little educating of the National Geographic writers. “They kept saying the mantle was ‘fluid,’ which is not accurate,” she says.

Guth hopes to return to do more research for her dissertation, opting for Kenya, where the real focus of her work exists.

Written by by Dennis Walikainen, senior editor

Published in Tech Today.

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Student Veterans Honored at Midyear Commencement

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For the first time at Michigan Tech, graduating student veterans will be honored at commencement with red, white and blue cords in recognition of their service to the country.

Three graduates will wear the cords this fall and be recognized by President Glenn Mroz during commencement on Saturday, Dec. 10, in the SDC Wood Gym. The students are:

  • Mike Geiersbach of Wheeler (Marine Corps/Military Police), who served more than four years and is graduating with a BS in Mechanical Engineering.
  • Sue Larson of Waupaca, Wisc. (Air Force), who served six years and is receiving an MS in Environmental Engineering Science.
  • Matt Smith of Hancock (Air Force/Security Forces), who served two years and is receiving a BS in Electrical Engineering Technology.

Larson, a graduate student, said: “I think it’s great that Michigan Tech is so supportive of the student veteran population and has chosen to distinguish us in this way. It will be an honor to be among the first veterans to wear the new red, white and blue cords.”

The presentation of the cords reflects the growing number of activities and services on campus that focus on students who are veterans or children of veterans. This initiative is being coordinated by Veterans’ Services/Registrar’s Office and the Vice President for Student Affairs Office.

Submitted by Kathy Pintar, veteran school certifying official, registrar’s office
Published in Tech Today

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Education in Tune with Industry Raises Michigan Tech’s Job Placement Rate to Nearly 95 Percent

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As Michigan Governor Rick Snyder takes the podium at Delta College today to talk about the need for more highly skilled workers to meet Michigan employers’ needs, Michigan Tech reports that its job placement rate has risen to an astonishing 94.6 percent.

At its most recent Career Fair in September, the University hosted 720 recruiters from 245 companies. Students participated in more than 4,200 interviews at the event and in the days immediately following it. The University has another Career Fair scheduled for February 2012.

“Employers measure us by the performance of our alumni working at their companies,” said Jim Turnquist, director of Career Services. “We have a reputation for excellence.”

And employers are willing to pay for excellence, Turnquist noted. For example, the average salary reported by a 2011 Michigan Tech graduate in software engineering was $67,000; biomedical engineering, $60,000; and electrical engineering, $58,561. The national average salary of a 2011 college graduate was $51,171, according to the latest report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

In Snyder’s fifth special message to the Legislature since he took office Jan. 1, the governor is expected to outline his plan for improving ties among employers, educators and students to better match job skills to employers’ needs.

“At a time when many are questioning the value of a college education, we stress an education that meets both the needs of the students and the requirements of industry. It’s part of our DNA at Michigan Tech,” said President Glenn Mroz. “We work hand in hand with the industries that employ our graduates, through co-ops, internships and our signature Enterprise Program–where students work in teams to solve industry problems–to make sure our graduates are well-qualified to enter the workforce.”

During the economic downturn in 2009, the University’s traditionally high job placement rate dropped to 83.1 percent, still well above the national average of 63.7 percent. But Turnquist saw the economy starting to take a turn for the better in late 2010, as more recruiters began coming to campus.

“Companies are retooling and reengineering, and they’re hiring our people to do it,” he said.

by Jennifer Donovan, director, public relations
Published in Tech Today

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Jackson Teacher Honored

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A teacher in Jackson won a national award for his teaching of high school astronomy and attributes the honor in part to Michigan Tech.

Mark Reed, who teaches at Jackson High School and Lumen Christi High School, won the Thomas J. Brennan Award for 2011 from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

Reed was cited for exceptional commitment to classroom or planetarium education.

He is involved with Tech’s Michigan Teacher Excellence Program (MiTEP). He spent a week on campus in 2011 and will spend another week in 2012. He describes the classes and fieldwork as “wonderful”–“They get the creative juices going.”

At Tech, he worked with faculty and doctoral students, including Professor Bill Rose (GMES) and graduate student Mark Klawiter (GMES).

MiTEP is funded by the National Science Foundation to improve Earth science education nationwide.

Participation can lead to a master’s degree in applied science education.

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New theses and dissertations available in the Library

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The Graduate School is pleased to announce new theses and dissertations are now available in the J.R. van Pelt and Opie Library from the following programs:

  • Applied Ecology
  • Applied Natural Resource Economics
  • Biological Sciences
  • Chemical Engineering
  • Civil Engineering
  • Electrical Engineering
  • Environmental Engineering
  • Forest Ecology and Management
  • Forest Science
  • Geophysics
  • Materials Science and Engineering
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics
  • Physics
  • Rhetoric and Technical Communication
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Creating a Veteran-friendly Campus

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When Jillian Richards came to Michigan Tech from the military, she traded discipline for self-discipline, regimen for free time, camaraderie for aloneness. The changes have been “a culture shock,” she says.

A native of Stevensville, Richards, 26, served eight years in the Army. Now she is a junior in civil engineering, and the transition from military to civilian life has been difficult. So much so, she sought counseling for insomnia and questioned whether getting out of the military was the right thing to do. Civilian life is a different world for her.

Consider: In the military, she was told, “This is what you have to learn, and this is how you’re going to learn it.” In college, she must be more self-directed. “We have to relearn how to learn,” she says.

Consider, too: In the military, there is a tight buddy system. “We looked out for each other. We trusted each other. We were brothers and sisters. Here I’m on my own. It’s frustrating.”

Then she stumbled on a fellow veteran at a birthday party. They started talking. “We were both frustrated with classes and other students,” she says. “I vented to him. He was someone who understood.”  The company of a compatriot buoyed her. She’s sleeping better these days and is now the president of the Student Veterans Organization.  The primary goal of the group, which has about 20 regulars, is to find a resource room where veterans can gather to meet, hang out and do homework together. “It would be good for our well-being,” Richards says. “Reaffirm we’re all doing the right thing.”

An estimated 200,000 soldiers a year are leaving the military, some returning home from war. Many will go to college on the GI Bill, which covers eight semesters of tuition, fees and books. (Veterans can transfer these benefits to their children.)  Against this backdrop, efforts are underway to make Michigan Tech a veteran-friendly campus.

It’s a distinct mission: veterans are older, more experienced, more mature, and often are married with families; as well, some are saddled with combat experience and suffer from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  Rob Bishop, who is an advisor to the campus veterans group, says he would never have made it through college without a veteran-mentor. He hosted a webinar in late October for the campus; it addressed the needs of student-veterans.

The message: Veterans make good employees, but they don’t know it. They’re focused, reliable, good leaders and adept at teamwork, but they struggle to market themselves. They need to be confident that a leader in Iraq makes a leader in a corporation, that it’s not a big jump to go from being an artillery spotter to a student of physics.

Kathy Pintar, registration coordinator, is the point person who certifies benefits for veterans and monitors their academic progress.  “We, as a campus, have a lot more to learn and do to embrace these veterans,” she says.  She reports that there were 44 veterans on campus in spring 2009; now there are 86, ranging in age from 20 to 50.

Since 2008, Michigan Tech offers in-state tuition to out-of-state students who are the offspring or spouse of a person on active US military duty. Tech is also a “yellow-ribbon school”—a federal designation for a program where Tech commits $2,500, which the government matches, to help offset the tuition of nonresident students. Tech also provides veterans and current military personnel with a National Service Graduate Fellowship—a program initiated by the Graduate School to provide a tuition award to those who have provided service to our country.

Other initiatives are planned:

  • Holding a special session at Orientation to direct veterans to Tech’s wide array of student services, as well as their GI Bill benefits.
  • Steering them to the Veterans Hospital in Iron Mountain and local mental health providers.
  • Encouraging veterans in the larger community to connect with student-veterans.
  • Helping faculty learn to spot veterans who are suffering from PTSD.

Some plans are substantive; some are symbolic: In January, there will be a military appreciation night at a hockey game to recognize all veterans and ROTC cadets. Starting in December, veterans will sport red, white and blue honor cords at commencement, a salute to their service to the country. All of it is not only helpful, it’s good business. Says Bishop: “If we can create a network and an opportunity, we can become a destination for vets.”

Published in Tech Today.

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Carbon Foam: The Key Ingredient of a Better Battery?

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A lighter, greener, cheaper, longer-lasting battery. Who wouldn’t want that?

Tech researchers are working on it. Actually, their design is a twist on what’s called an asymmetric capacitor, a new type of electrical storage device that’s half capacitor, half battery. It may be a marriage made in heaven.

Capacitors store an electrical charge physically and have important advantages: they are lightweight and can be recharged (and discharged) rapidly and almost indefinitely. Plus, they generate very little heat, an important issue for electronic devices. However, they can only make use of about half of their stored charge.

Batteries, on the other hand, store electrical energy chemically and can release it over longer periods at a steady voltage. And they can usually store more energy than a capacitor. But batteries are heavy and take time to charge, and even the best can’t be recharged forever.

Enter asymmetric capacitors, which bring together the best of both worlds. On the capacitor side, energy is stored by electrolyte ions that are physically attracted to the charged surface of a carbon anode. Combined with a battery-style cathode, this design delivers nearly double the energy of a standard capacitor.

Now, Tech researchers have incorporated a novel material on the battery side to make an even better asymmetric capacitor.

Their cathode relies on nickel oxyhydroxide, the same material used in rechargeable nickel-cadmium or nickel-metal hydride batteries. “In most batteries that contain nickel oxyhydroxide, metallic nickel serves as a mechanical support and a current collector,” said chemistry professor Bahne Cornilsen, who has studied nickel electrodes for a number of years, initially with NASA support. A few years ago, the team had a chance to experiment with something different: Cornilsen suggested replacing the nickel with carbon foam.

Carbon foam has advantages over nickel. “It’s lighter and cheaper, so we thought maybe we could use it as a scaffold, filling its holes with nickel oxyhydroxide,” said Tony Rogers, associate professor of chemical engineering.

Carbon foam has a lot of holes to fill. “The carbon foam we are using has 72 percent porosity,” Rogers said. “That means 72 percent of its volume is empty space, so there’s plenty of room for the nickel oxyhydroxide. The carbon foam could also be made of renewable biomass, and that’s attractive.”

But how many times can you recharge their novel asymmetric capacitor? Nobody knows; so far, they haven’t been able to wear it out. “We’ve achieved over 127,000 cycles,” Rogers said.

Other asymmetric capacitors have similar numbers, but none have the carbon-foam edge that could make them even more desirable to consumers.

“Being lighter would give it a real advantage in handheld power tools and consumer electronics,” said Rogers. Hybrid electric vehicles are another potential market, since an asymmetric capacitor can charge and discharge more rapidly than a normal battery, making it useful for regenerative braking.

The group has applied for a patent on its new technology. Chemical engineering professor Michael Mullins is also a member of the research team. Graduate students contributing to the project are PhD graduate Matthew Chye and PhD student Wen Nee Yeo of the chemical engineering department and MS student Padmanaban Sasthan Kuttipillai and PhD student Jinjin Wang of the chemistry department.

The research is funded by the US Department of Energy, the Michigan Universities Commercialization Initiative, the Michigan Tech Research Excellence Fund and the Michigan Space Grant Consortium.

by Marcia Goodrich, senior writer
Published in Tech Today

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Hands, Minds–and Trees–Across the Sea

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The forests of North America are different from those in Finland and Sweden, and the management of these forest resources differs historically and culturally. But environmental and forest resources issues are no respecters of national borders and global solutions are needed in today’s global economy. So Michigan Tech’s ATLANTIS program at the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science (SFRES) is preparing graduate students on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean to tackle the world’s forest resources challenges.

ATLANTIS (Actions for Transatlantic Links and Academic Networks for Training and Integrated Studies) is an educational program jointly funded by the US Department of Education and the European Union. Only 16 such grants were awarded in 2008. Michigan Tech’s partner universities are North Carolina State, the University of Helsinki in Finland and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

Graduate students from each university spend up to a year at a foreign partner university, as well as up to a year at their home institution, earning dual master of science degrees from both their home and host universities. The program provides for faculty exchanges as well. So far 10 Michigan Tech faculty have spent time at the Swedish or Finnish universities to establish new collaborations, and a total of 24 graduate students will earn their degrees through this program.

An Estonian Student Comes to Tech

Tõnis Tõnisson, 25, is one of the ATLANTIS graduate students. An Estonian, he was studying in a cooperative program between the Estonian University of Life Sciences and the Swedish University of Life Sciences when he heard about the ATLANTIS program.

Tõnisson’s father works in forestry, and he wants to work in forest management. More than 50 percent of his native Estonia is covered with forests. “I grew up in the forest,” he explains, “and I wanted to study abroad.”

The fact that Michigan Tech courses are taught in English was no stumbling block for Tõnisson. He has studied English for 11 years, and the courses at the Swedish University of Life Sciences were taught in English. However, “I never had to speak English before. People here speak so fast, and they use more vocabulary than I know. But everybody has been really understanding and helpful.”

Another challenge was the high academic standards at Michigan Tech. “It is very different here,” Tõnisson says. “The university’s expectations of the students are much higher. I think I am learning much more here.”

Students here also have a lot more freedom than students in Estonia or Sweden, says Tõnisson. “And I am surprised at how open the people are here. They are much more talkative and friendly.”

Living on his own in Houghton, the Estonian student plunged right into campus life, playing soccer with international students over the summer and joining a bowling league.

Tõnisson spent a semester in Sweden and one in Finland before coming to Tech in January 2011. He is doing his graduate work with Kathy Halvorsen, a professor who holds a joint appointment in the Department of Social Sciences and the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science. He will finish his dual master’s degree program in December and return to Estonia to complete another master’s degree for which he is already enrolled.

A Michigan Tech Student Goes to Scandinavia

Kassidy Yatso, a graduate student who also earned her Bachelor of Science in Applied Ecology and Environmental Science at Tech, spent one ATLANTIS semester at the University of Helsinki and the second semester at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. She is back on campus now, completing her master’s degree work.

Yatso learned some surprising things while she was in Scandinavia, which she shared with the Tech community through a blog. (See Abroad.) For example, “No one in Sweden stands in line,” she discovered. “You push a button, and a paper slip comes out with a queue number. A large board shows which number they are serving, so you can guesstimate when to return for service.”

She also found that Swedish postage stamps, at 12 krona–approximately $1.85–are the most expensive stamps in the world. But the Swedish postal service is much more efficient and reliable than the one in Finland, the American student says.

Yatso’s academic experiences don’t reflect Tonisson’s impression that graduate school is more demanding in the US than it is in Scandinavia. In her April 17 blog, she describes a week that included a thesis defense; three demanding assignments for an intensive, two-week silviculture course; and an all-day field trip to Snogeholm to study multiple forest management techniques and current landscape architecture trends.

She still found time and energy to hear some live music by an all-girl Swedish band at a club in Malmo. “I was absolutely blown away,” she blogged. “They are now one of my favorite bands.”

No More Funding for ATLANTIS

The ATLANTIS program, a victim of federal budget cuts, won’t be funding any new programs, although Tech has already received the funds to complete its project. But Michigan Tech is going to try to find a way to continue the joint degree program with the Scandinavian universities.

“The European-American perspective provides invaluable benefit–a global perspective–to our students and the students from overseas,” says Chandrashekhar Joshi, professor of plant molecular genetics in SFRES. Joshi, who was graduate program director for SFRES when Michigan Tech applied for funding for the transatlantic master’s program, heads ATLANTIS at Tech.

“On return from abroad, the students’ vision has changed,” he says. “They become more outgoing. They transform into leaders. They seek more interactions with others. They act like global citizens.”

Yatso enthusiastically agrees. “The ATLANTIS program changed my life,” she says, “by giving me an opportunity to learn about science, culture and myself–while earning two master of science degrees. I have learned invaluable life lessons, skills and vocabulary along the way as well. The people I have met through ATLANTIS will forever be in my life and heart.”

Joshi points out that the dual degrees that the students earn are another benefit “of tremendous value in today’s job market.”

Since ATLANTIS began in 2008 in SFRES, two other international dual-degree programs funded by the same agencies have been established at Michigan Tech. One is in rail transportation; the other is in volcanology.

by Jennifer Donovan, director, public relations
Published in Tech Today

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New theses and dissertations available in the Library

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The Graduate School is pleased to announce new theses and dissertations are now available in the J.R. van Pelt and Opie Library from the following programs:

  • Civil Engineering
  • Computer Science
  • Electrical Engineering
  • Environmental Engineering
  • Environmental Engineering Science
  • Industrial Archaeology
  • Materials Science and Engineering
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics
  • Rhetoric and Technical Communication
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