Graduate School Newsblog

Category: News

Interesting stories about and for our students.

Mich Tech, AVL, ESD Provide Free Training for Michigan’s Auto Engineers

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See full ESD article for more information

The Engineering Society of Detroit (ESD), Michigan Technological University (MTU), and AVL are reaching out to help Michigan’s automotive engineers prepare for the industry’s movement into sustainable hybrid vehicle technology. The semester-long course, Advanced Propulsion for Hybrid Vehicles with Concentration in Battery Engineering, will be offered this fall.

The graduate-level, three-credit class will focus on engineering skills that apply to next-generation hybrid and electric vehicles with an emphasis on battery design and hands-on learning. The Michigan Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth as well as the Michigan Academy for Green Mobility are sponsoring the course.

This course will take place September 3 through December 10, 2009, and be held at ESD’s headquarters in Southfield on Thursdays from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m.  It will be taught by a group of MTU faculty and staff from the College of Engineering and key experts in industry providing guest lectures with Associate Professor Jeffrey D. Nabor being the lead instructor.

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Michigan Tech Receives $3 Million in Federal Stimulus Funds

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Tech Today

by Jennifer Donovan, public relations director

Michigan Tech will receive nearly $3 million in federal stimulus funds to develop an interdisciplinary educational program to train engineers and technicians to design and build the next generation of hybrid electric vehicles.

The $2.98-million grant is part of $2.4 billion in awards under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, announced Thursday by President Barack Obama. Vice President Joe Biden was in Detroit to announce that more than $1 billion of the grants will go to companies and universities in Michigan, more than any other state.

Michigan Tech is one of three state universities in Michigan to receive education and training awards. The other two are Wayne State University and the University of Michigan.

“This is great news for Michigan Tech,” said Carl Anderson, associate dean for research and graduate programs in the College of Engineering and principal investigator for the new program. “We have had a strength in liquid-fueled vehicles and active partnerships with their manufacturers for a long time. Now we have the opportunity to take advantage of a broader array of our strengths and establish a similar leadership role in the development of a new generation of electric-powered vehicles.”

Michigan Tech will work with Argonne National Laboratory and a number of industrial partners including AVL, General Motors, Eaton, Horiba, MathWorks, Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories and Woodward. The University and its partners will develop undergraduate and graduate curricula, including a certificate program in hybrid electric vehicles.

“We’ll be training and retraining the next generation of engineers to produce vehicles that reduce fuel consumption and emissions,” said Jeff Naber, lead faculty member of the multidisciplinary program.

The electric hybrid curriculum will be modeled after the groundbreaking course in advanced propulsion for hybrid vehicles that Michigan Tech taught in Detroit for displaced automotive engineers last spring. The course was offered in cooperation with the Engineering Society of Detroit (ESD) and General Motors, with GM providing laboratory facilities.

Another free, three-credit course will be offered in Detroit this fall, in cooperation with AVL, a developer of powertrains and vehicle simulation and test systems based in Plymouth, and with ESD. AVL will provide lab space, and GM is donating three hybrid vehicles. Ford and Lotus are also supporting the course.

Under the new grant, plans are to develop a mobile lab that could enable engineers anywhere to take the courses, Naber said.

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New Geoscience Graduate Program Builds Global Partnerships in Education and Research

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Tech Today

Michigan Tech has received support from the US Department of Education to fund a new, international, joint master’s program in volcanology and geotechniques.

The new program, INVOGE (International Volcanology and Geotechniques), will build on Michigan Tech’s well-known graduate programs and global research in volcanology and geohydrology and will allow students to spend a significant part of their graduate study on campuses in France and Italy and at worldwide research sites, such as the University of Reunion’s in the French Indian Ocean.

At Michigan Tech, INVOGE leads to a Master of Science in Geology with concentrations in volcanology or engineering geology, and exchanges could begin as early as this fall.

The European partner institutions are Universite Blaise Pascal in Clermont Ferrand, France, and the University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy. Both are well-known for their volcanology and engineering geology programs that attract students from all over Europe.

The State University of New York at Buffalo is the fourth institution that is part of INVOGE and possesses similar strengths in its graduate geology programs.

The program brings funding of $460,000 to Michigan Tech and SUNY-Buffalo and a similar amount of money to the European partner universities over the next five years. The funds are mainly for student and faculty travel.

“This is the type of educational partnership that helps us build more-advanced degree programs and a larger, more-robust faculty and research facility,” said Bill Rose, professor of petrology and principal investigator in the program.

“Our students in volcanology will now have access to very strong programs in petrology and experimental volcanology, as well as new field sites for volcano work,” he added.

“This program builds on Bill’s long-term efforts to collaborate with other universities to internationalize graduate education,” said Jackie Huntoon, dean of the Graduate School. “It is exciting that our students will have the opportunity to experience different cultures and make connections that will benefit them throughout their careers. Volcanologists really need to have a global perspective in order to conduct relevant research. This program is going to help our students become future leaders in their field.”

Rose said that the effort builds on successful exchange programs also funded by the Department of Education in geosciences over the past five years involving Canadian and Mexican universities.

“As a leader in volcanology research in the US, we need to ensure the breadth and excellence of our research program and provide the best possible opportunities for our students, if we want to continue to attract the best and brightest students,” Rose added. “The chance to build an international advisory committee and work on volcanoes all around the world will help us achieve that goal.”

The INVOGE web page is located at www.geo.mtu.edu/~raman/INVOGE .

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Shane Ferrell Presents at International Conference

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Tech Today

Pasi Lautala, director of the Rail Transportation Program, and graduate student Shane Ferrell (CEE) recently presented the paper “Cold Climate Freight Railroads” at the International Heavy Haul Conference in Shanghai, China. Ferrell was one of six students worldwide sponsored by the IHHA to participate in the conference.

Lautala and Ferrell also made invited presentations about Michigan Tech and its Rail Transportation Program at Shijiazhuang Railway Institute and the Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute (CAREERI), in Lanzhou, China.

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Summer 2009 Finishing Fellows Announced

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Tech Today

The Graduate School has awarded its Finishing Fellowships for summer 2009.

The following PhD candidates will receive one-time finishing fellowships:

* Carrie J. Andrew (School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science)
* Cameron Hartnell (Social Sciences)
* Emily B. McCarthy (Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences)
* Bode J. Morin (Social Sciences)
* Alicia A. Thorsen (Computer Science)
* Tongquan Wei (Electrical Engineering)
* Zijun Xu (Biological Sciences)

Application procedures for the School’s fellowship programs and photographs of recent recipients can be found at www.mtu.edu/gradschool/administration/academics/honors-awards/ .

Nominations for the fall finishing fellowships will be accepted until 4 p.m. on Friday, June 26.

If you have any questions, contact Debra Charlesworth at ddc@mtu.edu or Heather Suokas at hlsuokas@mtu.edu .

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Sustainable Futures Institute Poster Session on Monday

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Published in Tech Today

submitted by Denise Heikinen, Sustainable Futures Institute

The Sustainable Futures Institute (SFI) is sponsoring a poster session on Monday, June 22, in Memorial Union Ballroom 2 from 1 to 2:15 p.m. The event is open to the campus and local communities.

Both undergraduate and graduate students as well as faculty members from across the campus community will be displaying posters illustrating sustainability research and initiatives. These posters represent a broad range of sustainability action taking place at SFI and on the Michigan Tech campus.

Several posters in this year’s session will highlight the progress of ongoing research by the students involved in the Sustainable Futures Integrated Graduate Education and Research Traineeships program and its Wood-to-Wheels projects.

Since the poster session coincides with meetings of the SFI Advisory Board, members will be on hand. Attendees will have the chance to meet and mingle with board members, who represent the following: Caterpillar, Dow Corning, General Motors, The Great Lakes Commission, Kimberly-Clark, US Air Force, Steelcase, Motorola, Los Alamos National Laboratory of the Department of Energy, Nelson Mandela School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Southern University and A&M College, and the USDA Forest Service.

This poster session is intended to strengthen the network of scholars interested in promoting the important research, education and outreach work in sustainability on the Michigan Tech campus and in the community.

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Graduate Students Present at the 2009 Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial Archaeology

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Published in Tech Today

An incoming faculty member and several Michigan Tech graduate students of the Industrial Heritage and Archaeology program of the Department of Social Sciences presented papers at the 2009 Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial Archaeology, held May 28-31 in Pittsburgh.

  • master’s student Seth DePasqual, “Winning Coal at 78 Degrees North: Mining, Management and Negotiations at Old Longyear City”
  • master’s student Megan Glazewski, “Discovering Landscape Gardening Practices within Industrial Landscapes of the 19th Century: William Kemble’s Cottage, Cold Spring, New York”
  • doctoral candidate Cameron Hartnell, “High Arctic Coal Mining: The Strategy of the Arctic Coal Company”
  • doctoral student Marc Henshaw, “The Steamboat Industry in Brownsville, Pa.: The Beginnings of the Industrialization in the Upper Monongahela Valley”
  • doctoral student Erik Nordberg, “The Nordberg Manufacturing Company of Milwaukee: History, Archives and Research Potential”
  • incoming Associate Professor Fredric Quivik (Social Sciences), “What Has Happened to Other Gritty Cities: Putting Paterson into Context”
  • doctoral candidate Scott See, “National Heritage Area Candidate: The Iron Ranges of Lake Superior”

The society awarded Michigan Tech alum Marco Meniketti ’98 (MS in Industrial Archaeology) its 2009 Robert M. Vogel Prize. The award honors the author of the best article to appear in the society’s journal, IA, every three years.

Conference organizer and doctoral candidate Bode Morin (Industrial Heritage and Archaeology) was quoted in the May 29 issue of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette here.

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Michigan Tech Tops in the Nation for Women Earning Engineering PhDs

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From Tech Today

by Jennifer Donovan, public relations director

Michigan Tech’s College of Engineering graduates a higher percentage of women with PhDs in engineering than any other engineering school in the nation, the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) reports.

Forty percent of Michigan Tech’s engineering doctoral degrees were awarded to women, according to the ASEE’s annual report, “Engineering by the Numbers.” The report is based on data from 2008. The next highest percentage of women PhD recipients in engineering was 38.7 percent, at the University of Rochester.

“What great news,” said Jacqueline Huntoon, dean of the Graduate School. “I congratulate the faculty in our College of Engineering and the Graduate School staff on recruiting and retaining these outstanding women. Michigan Tech’s STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) focus makes it challenging for us to maintain high levels of gender diversity on our campus because STEM programs tend to attract males. We plan to build on this success and continue to increase the diversity of our students.”

According to the report, only engineering schools that award at least 25 doctoral degrees during the year are ranked. There were 100 engineering schools nationwide that awarded 25 or more PhDs during 2008.

In undergraduate engineering degrees, Michigan Tech ranked third in the nation in numbers of bachelor’s degrees in mechanical engineering; 11th in numbers of civil engineering bachelor’s degrees; 16th in both computer engineering and electrical engineering; and 22nd in the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded by the College of Engineering.

“At a time when the state, nation and world need more women in engineering, I am pleased that the percentage of women receiving engineering PhDs at Michigan Tech is the highest in the nation,” said Tim Schulz, dean of the College of Engineering. “As these young women rise to leadership positions in industry, government and academia, they will serve as excellent role models for future generations.”

View the full ASEE report at www.asee.org/publications/profiles/upload/2008ProfileEng.pdf .

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