Graduate School Newsblog

Category: News

Interesting stories about and for our students.

Agassiz Tours Teach Community about Lake Ecology

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Last Saturday, people flocked to Chassell for the Strawberry Festival, but not everyone was there for the strawberries. “The Strawberry Festival was nice, but I really came here for the Agassiz,” said Carl Groeneveld, a resident of Houghton.

The Western UP Center for Science, Mathematics and Environmental Education hosted the public aboard the Agassiz, Michigan Tech’s research vessel. Participants learned how scientists study the Great Lakes and what factors contribute to a healthy lake. More than 100 adults and children signed up for the scientific excursions on Chassell Bay, so many that the organizers added two 45-minute trips.

Participants pitched in, dropping a small dredge to pick up a sediment sample from the lake bottom and collecting plankton using a fine-mesh net. The plankton were then scooped it into a jar and passed around for a sniff. (It smelled like fish.)

“It was interesting and a lot of fun,” said youngster Josh Eckloff, from Allouez. “I liked learning about science and, of course, the mud.”

The chief scientist, PhD graduate student Marcel Dijkstra (Environmental Engineering), addressed a variety of ecological concerns, such as stamp sand in Torch Lake, zebra mussels in the Great Lakes and unbalanced oxygen levels in the water.

See Tech Today for the complete news story.

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Researchers Connect Volcanic Activity to Mini-Earthquakes

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The ash from the recent eruptions of the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle in Chile has disrupted airplane schedules, even circling the globe a second time to cause more delays recently. A Michigan Tech researcher and his graduate students are studying how these volcanoes erupt and what their relation is to earthquakes. They hope to resolve much bigger issues than airplane inconveniences.

Assistant Professor Greg Waite (GMES) is focusing on “mini-earthquakes” within or beneath the troublesome Villarrica volcano. These earthquakes reveal details about the shape of the conduit and dynamics of the magmatic system.

“The seismic data suggest the conduit becomes a planar dike at a relatively shallow depth,” he says. Graduate student Josh Richardson (GMES) has studied those “spaghetti splatters”: the mini-earthquakes at Villarrica.  “He recorded some 19,000 mini-quakes over the course of about a week on a recent field trip,” Waite says. These events are very subtle and cannot be simply identified without careful analysis. “We think they are from the small expansions and contractions in the conduit.”

Waite and his students’ conduit-model work has produced another interesting result at Fuego volcano in Guatemala. Recent PhD graduate John Lyons (GMES) discovered that, instead of the magma simply moving vertically up the conduit from a deeper magma chamber, there is a kink–an “elbow in the conduit, a corner in the geometry”–a couple hundred meters below the surface.

See Tech Today for the complete news story.

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South African Graduate Student Plans to Bring Education to Her People

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PhD student Taile Leswifi
PhD student Taile Leswifi
Like Michelle Obama, who is visiting South Africa this week, a black South African young woman who is studying for her PhD in environmental engineering at Michigan Tech, has a message of hope and inspiration for young women in remote areas of her country.

Nelson Mandela, who led the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, is Taile (pronounced Dah-ee-lay) Leswifi’s hero. And the graduate student is certainly following his counsel. She is making the most of what she has: an aptitude for science and math, the problem-solving mind-set of an engineer, a deep commitment to improving life for the people of her native land, and a fierce dedication to communicating to coming generations of South African children that education is the key that can open the doors of their world.

Studying on Fulbright and PEO Sisterhood international scholarships, Leswifi is researching new ways to produce a sustainable, renewable, low-cost source of hydrogen energy from water and sunlight–energy that does not add to the pollution of the environment. She is also preparing herself to teach at Tshwane University of Technology back in South Africa. The university is holding a professorship for her, and she plans to work with a South African Fulbright group to take the promise of success through education to children in remote reaches of her country.

“I can’t change all of South Africa by myself,” she says, “but if I can change the mind-set of one person, then that person can change one other person, and that’s the way real change takes root.”

Leswifi knows about the challenge of living in a remote area. She grew up in one herself, the small town of Phalaborwa in northern South Africa. When she was small, apartheid was still the law of land. It deprived black South Africans of citizenship and gave them limited access to education, health care and other public services. Blacks could only get jobs considered undesirable by whites. Racial segregation was total and enforced by law.

For the rest of her amazing story, see Hope.

Published in Tech Today.

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Distinguished Alumnus Voted National PTA President-Elect

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Otha Thornton, who earned a Master of Science in Rhetoric and Technical Communications in 2001, has been voted president-elect of the National PTA. He will take office in 2013.

The National PTA comprises millions of families, students, teachers, administrators and business and community leaders devoted to the educational success of children and the promotion of parent involvement in schools.

Thornton was stationed at Michigan Tech from 1999 to 2002, serving as an Army ROTC recruiter, public affairs officer and assistant professor of military science. He received the Outstanding Alumni Award in 2003 and was Commencement speaker in 2009, when he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters.

Thornton is the former director of human resources and presidential communications officer for the White House Communications Agency, where he handled technical communications for the presidential team. He served more than 20 years in the military, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 2009 he became chief of personnel plans and operations in Iraq, earning the Bronze Star Medal for exceptional performance in combat operations. He has retired from the Army and now lives in Smyrna, Ga.

Published in Tech Today.

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Student Billing and Payment Structure Change

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Effective Friday, July 1, Michigan Tech will change the way we accept credit/debit cards for student billing payments. Every time a credit/debit card is used, the University is assessed a fee. To minimize the tuition dollars spent paying these fees, we have incorporated several changes to our student billing and payment structure.

  • We will no longer accept Visa credit/debit cards for student billing payments.
  • There will be a 2.3 percent nonrefundable fee assessed to MasterCard and Discover payments for student billing.
  • These changes only affect student billing; credit/debit cards (including Visa) can still be used fee-free throughout the rest of campus, including the Campus Bookstore, Mont Ripley, Campus Café and other University retail establishments.
  • We are encouraging students to use fee-free options for billing payments, including check, online e-check, cash, money order or traveler’s check.
  • We have introduced two new payment plans to help offset the cost of tuition: the Five-Payment and Four-Payment Plans.

Students and families were recently notified about these changes via postcard, and a follow-up email will be sent shortly. We have created a website, credit card, with detailed information and FAQs. We encourage you to review this site and be aware of the changes.

For more information, contact Accounting Services at 800-576-6484 or by email at student-billing@mtu.edu.

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:

  • Applied Natural Resource Economics
  • Civil Engineering
  • Electrical Engineering
  • Forest Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology
  • Forestry
  • Geology
  • Mathematical Sciences
  • Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics
  • Rhetoric and Technical Communication
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Travel Grants Awarded

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The Biotechnology Research Center has announced the recipients of its spring travel grants:

  • Graduate student Adam Abraham (Mechanical Engineering): $500 toward a poster presentation at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers–Summer Bioengineering Conference to be held in Farmington, Pa., in June.
  • Undergraduate student Emily Brown (Biomedical Engineering): $500 toward a poster presentation at the Society for Biomaterials Annual Conference held in Orlando, Fla., in April.
  • Graduate student Ning Chen (Chemistry): $500 toward a poster presentation at the 241st ACS National Meeting and Exposition held in Anaheim, Calif., in March.
  • Graduate student Stephanie Hamilton (Biomedical Engineering): $500 toward a poster presentation at the American College of Sport’s Medicine Annual Meeting to be held in Denver, Colo., in June.
  • Graduate student Weilue He (Biological Sciences): $500 toward a poster presentation at the 2011 Association for Research in Vision & Ophthalmology held in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in May.
  • Graduate student Connor McCarthy (Materials Science and Engineering): $500 toward a poster presentation at the Society for Biomaterials Annual Conference held in Orlando, Fla., in April.
  • Graduate student Kasra Momeni (Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics): $500 toward a podium presentation at the MRS Spring 2011 Conference held in San Francisco, Calif., in April.
  • Graduate student John Moyer (Mechanical Engineering): $500 toward a poster presentation at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers–Summer Bioengineering Conference to be held in Farmington, Pa. in June.
  • Graduate student Anahita Pakzad (Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics): $500 toward a podium presentation at the 241st ACS National Meeting and Exposition held in Anaheim, Calif., in March.
  • Graduate student Srinivasa Rao Sripathi (Biological Sciences): $500 toward a poster presentation at the 2011 Association for Research in Vision & Ophthalmology held in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in May.

Published in Tech Today.

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New CS&E Graduate Program Director Announced

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Warren Perger was appointed as the new graduate program director for the Computational Science and Engineering (CS&E) PhD program this week. Perger is currently the graduate program director for the Electrical and Computer Engineering programs and will continue in this role moving forward. Current and prospective students can now contact him with any program-related questions.

Dean Jacqueline Huntoon (Graduate School) commented, “We are happy to have Warren in this role. The CS&E program is one of three nondepartmental programs housed in the Graduate School, and it offers many valuable opportunities to our students. Through Warren’s leadership we know that the program will continue to grow in the future.”

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School of Technology Offers First Graduate Program

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The School of Technology is undergoing a transformation. Established in 1972, at the outset it offered training certificates; then two-year associate’s degrees; then bachelor’s degrees; and now comes its first graduate program–a master’s in integrated geospatial technology.

Dean Jim Frendewey says of the program, which was approved by the State Thursday, “It fits in with what we are about and what we do.” He adds that this blend of theory, technology, and application is “a natural evolution.”

Simply put, geospatial means information linked to location. Global sustainable development depends on the availability and reliability of data about natural and built features and locations–rivers and towns, mountains and pipelines. This information can be used to plan the built environment or to respond to natural disasters; for instance, locating a cell phone tower, or, after an earthquake, comparing damage information and population information to help deliver emergency services and pinpoint zones of refuge.

“More and more people want to know where things are located,” Frendewey says. That includes industry, government, military, and the scientific community–the latter ranging from geologists to environmentalists to social scientists. Meeting those needs, he says, constitutes “a valuable undertaking.”

The program, which has an intensive online component, hinges on interdisciplinary collaborations among faculty on and off campus. The faculty lineup includes Research Scientist Colin Brooks and Codirector Robert Shuchman (MTRI); Assistant Professor Michael Falkowski, Professor Ann Maclean and Professor Andrew Storer (all of SFRES); Assistant Professors Eugene Levin and Yushin Ahn of the School of Technology; industry leaders from the US and Russia; and scholars at the University of Maine, Ohio State University, the Technical University of Israel and Moscow State University.

The acquisition and processing of geospatial data about the land make for an applied science. The technology includes surveying, geodetic science, photogrammerty, cartography, and mapping–all enriched with new, sophisticated technology in satellite systems, remote sensing capabilities, precision surveying instruments, computing, data networks, laser systems, radar, and sonar.

The master’s program will begin in the fall and is comprised of 25 classes.

See Tech Today for the complete news story.

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