Interesting stories about and for our students.
One of the most important activities of the Michigan Tech Alumni Association is the recognition of the achievements and contributions of our many outstanding alumni and friends.
The Distinguished Alumni Award is presented to alumni who have made outstanding contributions both in their careers and to Michigan Tech over a number of years. The 2011 recipient is Bhakta Rath, MS Metallurgical and Materials Engineering ’58.
See Tech Today for the complete article and list of award recipients.
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:
The Michigan Academy for Green Mobility Alliance (MAGMA) has approved three graduate certificate programs in hybrid electric vehicles and advanced battery systems. Michigan Tech’s hybrid vehicle engineering certificate, which takes 15 graduate credits to earn has been approved for up to $1,800 in training grants.
The funding is for currently employed engineers in Michigan. Its goal is to ensure that the automotive industry has workers with the skills it requires to grow and prosper in the emerging green economy. Funding is also available for retraining for displaced engineers through Michigan Works! and the State Energy Sector Partnership program (SESP).
Tech’s hybrid vehicle engineering certificate was developed with a $3 million grant from the Department of Energy Transportation Electrification and includes a mobile lab. This is an interdisciplinary program involving faculty and staff from mechanical engineering-engineering mechanics, electrical and computer engineering, materials science and engineering and chemical engineering. It is headed by Associate Dean Carl Anderson (COE) and Associate Professor Jeff Naber (ME-EM).
Published in Tech Today.
It’s more than a bit ironic that Jason Carter, chair and associate professor in exercise science, health and physical education, has a touch of insomnia, since he is studying sleep deprivation in his lab. Carter’s malady may partially stem from having a new child at home; some 90 million Americans have such reason (for the most part) for such suffering. As part of a $400,000 National Institutes of Health grant, Carter and his research team are looking at sleep deprivation’s links to hypertension, among other issues, and differences by gender.
“We are trying to figure out why women are more susceptible to developing hypertension as a result of reduced sleep, and it may relate to reproductive hormones,” Carter says.
“In the women, we are looking at levels of estrogen and progesterone and if they relate to the sympathetic nervous system [the fight vs. flight response],” Carter says. “We don’t know why women respond more dramatically to sleep deprivation from a cardiovascular perspective, but we aim to find out if an overly active nervous system is partially responsible.”
The research focuses on differences in the nervous system’s response to stress. Researchers can measure this response using a specialized technique called microneurography. This invasive procedure includes inserting a microelectrode into the peroneal nerve just below the skin surface in the lower leg. This provides them with direct measures of sympathetic traffic that can be quantified several ways.
This inquiry aims to compare male and female subjects with a normal night’s sleep and those who have been awake for twenty-four consecutive hours. For the keep-awake crowd, that means no coffee or food for the entire night, as the tired men and women camp out in the SDC under the watchful eye of students and researchers.
Master’s student Robert Larson of Chassell assists Carter in the lab and focuses on “how sleep deprivation affects blood pressure and anxiety, and how your body responds to changes in blood pressure.” Sometimes this work gets comical. “The subjects can get loopy,” Larson says. “We ask them to count backwards by fours, for example, and they can’t do it.” Larson ultimately aims to obtain a PhD and work with people in research labs in a hospital or academic setting.
The ramifications of sleep deprivation can go beyond the lab, Carter says. If his work can lead to treatment for the sleep-deprived women and men, that could in turn lead to lower health care costs, since many other health factors are impacted by a lack of sleep.
“Sleep medicine is really only a twenty- to thirty-year-old science,” says Carter. “We are just beginning to realize the importance of getting a good night’s sleep. There is a cumulative effect from not getting enough sleep.” And that seven to eight hours of sleep is becoming more elusive to Americans, he says, hence the urgency for his research and the NIH grant.
“We spend one-third of our lives asleep, and we still don’t know the real physiological purpose.”
Published in Tech Today.
Dishes from Thailand are on the menu this week at Khana Khazana (food treasure), a special ethnic lunch cooked by international students and served in the Memorial Union Food Court every Friday.
Parawee Pumwongpitak, a materials science and engineering graduate student from Thailand, will cook Spaghetti Pad Kee Mao, spaghetti with spicy Thai stir fried chicken and herb (soya balls for veggie dish); Tom Seap Muu, tasty spicy and sour soup of northeastern Thailand served with pork or mushrooms; Khao Niew Sang, sweet sticky rice topped with a slice of creamy egg custard.
A complete meal costs $6 and includes coffee, hot tea or a fountain soda. Items are available a la carte for $2.
Khana Khazana is a cooperative effort of international students and Dining Services.
Published in Tech Today.
Komar Kawatra couldn’t be prouder of the students on his research team. “We have developed a CO2 scrubber,” he says. “It was designed at Michigan Tech and built at Michigan Tech by Michigan Tech students.”
Kawatra, who chairs the chemical engineering department, has reason to be gratified by his proteges’ efforts. An 11-foot bench-model smokestack packed with glass beads is percolating away in a lab. Near the top, a proprietary liquid dribbles down. From below, carbon dioxide bubbles up. By the time the gas reaches the top, fully half of the CO2 has been gobbled up by the liquid.
The process not only captures carbon, it binds it in a solid form, making an undisclosed product that can be used as a construction material. The liquid itself can be recovered and used again. The group has applied for a patent and hopes to build a pilot plant in cooperation with an industry partner, Carbontec Energy Corp.
Other scrubbers remove up to 90 percent of the carbon dioxide from a smokestack, Kawatra notes, but the liquid must be processed to strip away the carbon dioxide, which is generally compressed and stored. “This is a very expensive technique, which is probably why we do not see it commonly employed in industry,” says PhD student Brett Spigarelli of Iron Mountain, a member of the research team.
The group is working to make the scrubber remove even more carbon dioxide. In the meantime, it offers a significant benefit to industry. “Industry has a problem with CO2 capture and sequestration because it is an added cost with no direct benefit to them,” Kawatra says. “But, if it is possible for industry to both capture CO2 and produce a product from the CO2 that they can sell, then they will be much more interested. Our goal is therefore to not only capture the CO2 at the lowest possible cost, but also to manufacture useful, marketable products.”
Building the scrubber has been as much about education as research. In the beginning, Kawatra notes, the scrubber only removed 5 percent of the CO2, and the students were stymied. Then they had their first aha experience—and replaced their opaque pipe with clear plastic so they could see what was actually going on inside.
“You think research is going to be really complex and difficult,” says Spigarelli. “Sometimes, it’s just a matter of looking at things a little differently.” That small step led to big breakthroughs and, ultimately, to professional recognition. Their poster received second-place honors among the student entries at the 2010 American Institute of Chemical Engineers National Meeting, held in Salt Lake City.
The team included five chemical engineering undergraduates, Janelle Paddock, Paul Hagadone, Alison Springer-Wilson, Aliabbas Sherally and Russ Jungnitsch. Involving undergraduates in research does much more than prepare them for careers in academia, says Spigarelli. Research brings classroom lessons to life. “The sooner students can get familiar with these processes, the better prepared they are for the workplace.”
Kawatra’s graduate team members are Justin and Josh Carlson of Escanaba, Joe Halt of Calumet and Urvashi Srivastava of India.
“I have four Yoopers working for me,” Kawatra says, smiling broadly. “We’re one family, and it’s a lot of fun to work with them.”
Published in Tech Today.
Students can now download EndNote output styles that match the Graduate School procedures described in Section 3.9. EndNote can:
EndNote is available as a campus site license for all Michigan Tech students, faculty, and staff. The Graduate School’s EndNote page has links to download EndNote and the style files.
For a quick introduction to EndNote, view the Graduate School’s June 30, 2010 seminar or use the support available through EndNote.
For questions about the Michigan Tech import filters and output styles, please contact Debra Charlesworth.
The library offers weekly workshops all semester on resources that lend an academic edge and save time. Workshops take place at 1 p.m. on alternate Tuesdays and Wednesdays in Library 244. Each workshop is offered twice to accommodate class schedules.
Margaret Phillips, reference and instruction librarian, will present a workshop, “Resources for ME-EM Graduate Students,” at 1 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 22; and Wednesday, March 2, in Library 244. The workshop will focus on strategies to help ME-EM graduate students navigate engineering databases and locate theses, dissertations and reports related to their field of research.
Philips will explore the Compendex and Proquest Engineering Collection databases. Participants will set up an account in Compendex, be able to save searches and be notified of new literature additions in their particular areas of interest.
This spring’s workshops will focus on resume building, material science resources, managing citations and many more. The library welcomes feedback and ideas for future workshops. Email them at library@mtu.edu.
Published in Tech Today.
The Graduate School is pleased to announce the following students have earned Finishing Fellowships to help complete their doctoral studies:
The fellowships are made possible by the support of the Graduate School.
Details on the summer 2011 competition may be found online, as well as photographs of our recipients.
The Graduate School is pleased to announce the following programs have new theses and dissertations available in the J.R. Van Pelt and Opie Library:
