Graduate School Newsblog

Grad Student Takes a Silver in MRS Science as Art Contest

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Chee Huei Lee, a physics graduate student and research assistant, took a second place award in the Materials Research Society’s popular Science as Art competition, held at the 2009 MRS Fall Meeting in Boston.

Lee produces boron nitride nanotubes in a variety of shapes and sizes using catalytic chemical vapor deposition on a silicon substrate. He created “Dandelion Parachute Ball in the Nano World” using image processing software such as Photoshop to combine multiple scanning electron microscope images of the nanotubes.

“It is like playing a jigsaw puzzle game with no absolute rules,” says Lee. “And the final solution or result is only limited by imagination and creativity.”

Lee’s dandelion was chosen as one of the 50 finalists from among nearly 200 artistic entries. From the finalists, three first place and three second place winners were selected, including Lee’s entry.

From Tech Today

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Award Recipients Announced for Graduate Research Forum

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The Ecosystem Science Center and the Biotechnology Research Center have
announced award recipients for the Sixth Annual ESC/BRC Graduate Research Forum, held on March 26. Two grand prize awards, five merit awards and four honorable mention awards were presented.

The recipients were selected from among the 43 posters and abstracts submitted by students conducting research related to ecology, the environment and biotechnology at Michigan Tech.

$500 Grand Prizes

Ecosystem Science Center

Meagan L. Harless (Biological Sciences) for “Effects of Road Salt (NaCl) Pollution on the Survival and Growth of Larval Wood Frogs (Lithobates sylvatica).” Her advisor is Casey Huckins.

Biotechnology Research Center

Eli Vlaisavljevich (Biomedical Engineering) for “Magnetoelastic Materials as Novel Bioactive Coatings for Control of Cell Adhesion to Prevent Implantable Biomaterial Associated Fibrous Overgrowth.” His advisor is Rupak Rajachar.

$100 Merit Awards

Ecosystem Science Center

Rita Koch (SFRES) for “Insect and Disease Response to Prescribed Burning and Wildfire in Pine Forests in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.” Her advisors are Linda Nagel and Andrew Storer.

Mickey Jarvi (SFRES) for “Temperature acclimation of fine roots to soil warming in a sugar maple dominated northern hardwood forest.” His advisor is Andrew Burton.

Kayla Griffith (SFRES) for “H2O18 as an Analyzer of Phragmites australis Invasion from Wet to Dry Sites” Her advisor is Catherine Tarasoff.

Biotechnology Research Center

Christopher Rivet (Biomedical Engineering) for “Development of a Composite Hydrogel Containing Electrospun Fibers for Spinal Cord Injury.” His advisor is Ryan Gilbert.

Jonathan Zuidema (Biomedical Engineering) for “Incorporation of Chitosan and Dextran into Hydrogel Blends Improves Neuronal Adhesion.” His advisor is Ryan Gilbert.

$50 Honorable Mention Awards

Ecosystem Science Center

Emmanuel Ebanyenle (SFRES) for “Impact of Shoot Borer (Hypsipyla robusta) on the Wood Anatomical Properties of Plantation Grown African Mahogany Species (Khaya ivorensis A. Chev).” His advisors are Andrew Burton and Andrew Storer.

Biotechnology Research Center

Yiru Chen (SFRES) for “Overexpression of auxin efflux carrier PIN9 gene alters secondary xylem development, gravitropic response and apical dominance in Populus.” Victor Busov is the advisor.

Natalie Hartman (Biomedical Engineering) for “Vaporized Bioglass Polymer Composites for Interfacial Tissue Regeneration.” Her advisor is Rupak Rajachar.

Sarah Kiemle (Biological Sciences) for “Land Plant Polymer Homologs in Primitive Taxa of the Charophycean Green Algae, Chlorokybus atmophyticus and Klebsormidium flaccidum.” Her advisor is Michael Gretz.

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Michigan Tech Lauded by the Peace Corps

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Michigan Tech has the largest Peace Corps Master’s International Program (PCMI) in the nation, with 55 students enrolled in seven programs. But it isn’t just the quantity of volunteers that brought the national manager of the PCMI program to the University Tuesday; it’s also their quality.

“We’re fortunate to have Michigan Tech people involved in Peace Corps,” said Eric Goldman. “They are premier Peace Corps volunteers, and we extend our thanks to you for what you have created. It’s astonishing.”

“No one comes close to your commitment and accomplishment,” he said. “Not only are you highly regarded at Peace Corps, but there are countries around the world that want Michigan Tech Peace Corps volunteers.”

Goldman also expressed Peace Corps’ gratitude to Portage Health, which provides a discount of up to 30 percent toward the cost of Michigan Tech’s PCMI students’ medical examinations. “To be a Peace Corps volunteer requires a rigorous medical process,” said Goldman. “It’s a considerable expense, and Peace Corps only provides a small amount. I don’t know of anyone besides Portage Health who has done this. It’s a fantastic example of corporate social responsibility.”

Under the direction of forestry professor Blair Orr, Michigan Tech started its first PCMI program in 1995, the Loret Miller Ruppe Master’s International Program in Forestry. Since then, a total of 155 students have enrolled and six more programs have been established, in civil and environmental engineering; applied natural resource economics; natural hazards mitigation (geology); civil and environmental engineering; science education; rhetoric and technical communication; and mechanical engineering.

President Glenn Mroz accepted a plaque from Goldman that expresses the Peace Corps’ appreciation to the University community. It reads, “Your extraordinary commitment to, and accomplishment in, the Master’s International program has made significant contributions to the lives of thousands of people around the world.”

Volunteer Julie Herrick had recently returned from her Peace Corps assignment in Panama and is completing her master’s. For her, the program offered a way to conduct research and get involved in community service. “I wanted a practical way to apply what I knew as a geologist in context. It was a commitment,” she said. “But it was the right way to go about this.”

Mroz was involved with the program from the start and recalled the first class heading out to Camp Alberta, where they learned “guts forestry” in preparation for their Peace Corps assignment. “From those five students, we’ve grown to the largest program in the US,” he said.

The program also benefits the University by bringing a diverse mix of students to campus, where they undergo two semesters of intensive academic preparation before entering Peace Corps. “It’s not high paying,” Mroz said. “But as an experience, Peace Corps is priceless. They learn that you can make a significant impact on people’s lives for a long time to come.”

Both Mroz and Goldman emphasized the role Orr has played in establishing and nurturing Michigan Tech’s Peace Corps program and noted his tenacity and willingness to speak his mind. “Blair is an absolute blessing,” said Goldman. “He does a superb job of keeping the Peace Corps honest.”

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Students Have Opportunity for Summer Internships

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Alert your students about the Michigan Initiative on Student NASA Exploration Research (MISNER), a program of paid internships offered by the Michigan Space Grant Consortium (MSGC).

MISNER will give undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to work over the summer of 2010 in Michigan industries connected with the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate.

Encourage students interested in NASA exploration and research to apply.

For more information, contact Jim Turnquist, director of Career Services, at 487-2313 or at jaturnqu@mtu.edu .

For instructions and application, visit MISNER .

Published in Tech Today.

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Here’s Some Tax Help

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VITA, the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, is being offered on the Michigan Tech campus again this year.

VITA is a program that was developed by the IRS and is available on university campuses across the country during each tax season. The School of Business and Economics sponsors Michigan Tech’s program.

This free service is offered from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Mondays; from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Thursdays; and from 3 to 5 p.m. on Fridays.

VITA sessions are held in Academic Office Building G010D. No appointment is necessary. You should bring your W-2s and other tax information, plus a copy of your tax return from last year.

In order to qualify as a VITA tax preparer, upper-division accounting students first complete an IRS self-study course, attend a tax seminar, and then pass an IRS test. The students prepare basic, individual income tax returns for other Michigan Tech students and for members of the local community who could not otherwise afford professional tax preparation services.

For further information, visit Vita .

Also, contact Joel Tuoriniemi at jctuorin@mtu.edu , or Anne Warrington at acwarrin@mtu.edu .

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Safer Helmet, Safer Head

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Michigan Tech Team Takes Its Award-winning Invention to San Francisco Inventors Expo

by Jennifer Donovan, director of public relations

In the heat of a football game, a player is tackled and pounded to the ground. His head takes a mighty sideways whack. What happens next–a concussion or some other kind of traumatic brain injury–is rarely good.

Now a team of inventive engineering students from Michigan Tech has designed a new and promising protective layer for sports and motorcycle helmets. They used the human head itself as a model for building a helmet lining that mimics the body’s own tricks for deflecting blows to the head. For example, the scalp, designed for redirecting oblique impacts; the skull, for absorbing normal impacts; and the cerebral spinal fluid, for dampening the final impact on the brain.

The team was one of 16 chosen from more than 200 colleges and universities to introduce their invention at a national inventors conference in San Francisco this week. Michigan Tech undergraduates and graduate students will be demonstrating a prototype Enhanced BioMorphic (EBM) helmet layer at March Madness for the Mind, sponsored by the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) and Inventors Digest magazine at the Exploratorium science museum.

In their prototype, they simulate the skull with a light composite sandwich shell, the scalp with thin elastic discs, and the spinal fluid with a soft padding system. The protective layer can be inserted into a helmet in addition to the regular helmet liner. It protects the head inside the helmet against both oblique and normal impacts.

“Normal helmets are designed for direct, straight-on impact,” explains Wayne Bell, a graduate student at Michigan Tech and helmet team member. “They aren’t designed to protect against rotational acceleration, even though ‘normal’ impacts in football often involve rotation.”

In an online competition, viewers have already voted a two-minute video about the helmet produced by Michigan Tech’s team one of the top three videos of student inventions. The top three videos will be shown today. A panel of independent reviewers and NCIIA and Inventors Digest staff will choose the winning video, and a People’s Choice Award will be presented to the team that receives the most votes from conference attendees.

The Michigan Tech team and advisor Gopal Jayaraman, a professor of mechanical engineering-engineering mechanics at Michigan Tech, have been designing, building, testing and refining prototype helmets for several years. Their latest prototype has passed drop-test standards set by the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE), preventing damage at 155 times the force of gravity (155 g’s), the maximum load the brain can take without sustaining injury. They are also evaluating their invention using a mathematical model that enables them to optimize performance based on the properties of the materials they use.

Michigan Tech’s Technology and Economic Development Office is working with the students to patent and license the new helmet technology. They hope to license their invention to a commercial sports equipment manufacturer, paving the way for a full-fledged athletic equipment research center at Michigan Tech.

Sponsors of the helmet research and development are Michigan Tech’s Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics, Athletics, and Exercise Science, Health and Physical Education Departments; the Michigan Universities Commercialization Initiative; and NCIIA.

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New Theses and Dissertations in the Library

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The Graduate School is pleased to announce the arrival of new theses and dissertations from our recent graduates in the J. R. Van Pelt Library and John and Ruanne Opie Library.  The names of our graduates, their degrees, advisors, and titles of their research are listed below.

Brian Beachy
Doctor of Philosophy in Forest Science
Advisor: Andrew J Storer
Dissertation title: Impacts of the Exotic Beech Bark Disease Complex in Michigan

Jessica Beachy
Doctor of Philosophy in Forest Science
Advisor: Andrew John Storer
Dissertation title: The Development of Trapping, Survey and Educational Tools for the Exotic Invasive Emerald Ash Borer (Agrilusplanipennis Fairmaire) (Coleoptera: Buprestidae)

Luke Bowman
Master of Science in Geology
Advisor: William I Rose
Thesis title: Community Perceptions of an NGO’s Impact on Disaster Preparedness in Los Planes de La Laguna, Santa Ana Volcano, El Salvador

Venkat Donuru
Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry
Advisor: Haiying Liu
Dissertation title: Design and Synthesis of Novel BODIPY Polymeric Dyes, and Redox-active Tetrathiafulvalene-Carbohydrate Conjugates for Potential Biosensing Applications

Chad Fortin
Master of Science in Applied Ecology
Coadvisors: Christopher Raymond Webster and David James Flaspohler
Thesis title: Floristic Quality as a Potential Driver of Vegetative Diversity-Productivity Relationships and Arthropod Habitat in Restored Grasslands

Bryan Franklin
Master of Science in Computer Science
Advisor: Steven R Seidel
Thesis title: Analysis and Performance of a UPC Implementation of a Parallel Longest Common Subsequence Algorithm

Valerie Fuchs
Doctor of Philosophy in Environmental Engineering
Coadvisors: John S Gierke and James R Mihelcic
Dissertation title: Nitrogen Removal and Sustainability of Vertical Flow Constructed Wetlands for Small Scale Wastewater Treatment

Alex Joseph Varghese
Master of Science in Electrical Engineering
Advisor: Paul L Bergstrom
Thesis title: Fabrication of Piezo Resistive Strain Sensor for Orthopedic Fracture Implant System

Jodi Lehman
Doctor of Philosophy in Rhetoric and Technical Communication
Advisor: Patricia J Sotirin
Dissertation title: International Teachers in the American Classroom: Deposing the Myth of Monolingualism

Ruben Otoniel Matias Gomez
Master of Science in Geology
Advisor: William I Rose
Thesis title: Volcanological Map of the 1961-2009 Eruption of Volcande Pacaya, Guatemala

Julian Mills-Beale
Master of Science in Civil Engineering
Advisor: Zhanping You
Thesis title: New Test Procedures for Aggregate Specific Gravities and Absorption

Srichand Pendyala
Master of Science in Computer Science
Advisor: Robert Louis Pastel
Thesis title: Sketch Recognition through Shape Based Interaction

Ratul Saha
Doctor of Philosophy in Biological Sciences
Advisor: Susan T Bagley
Dissertation title: UV Disinfection of Metalworking Fluids: Analysis Using Molecular Tools

Steven Vormwald
Master of Science in Computer Science
Advisor: Steven M Carr
Thesis title: Predicting Remote Reuse Distance Patterns in Unified Parallel C Applications

Fuyu Xu
Doctor of Philosophy in Forest Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology
Advisor: Chandrashekhar Pralhad Joshi
Dissertation title: Molecular Mechanism of Cellulose Biosynthesis in Plants

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Sixth Annual ESC/BRC Graduate Research Forum

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The Sixth Annual ESC/BRC Graduate Research Forum be held from 3 to 5 p.m., Friday, March 26, in the atrium of the Forestry building.

Graduate students working in ecosystem science and biotechnology fields will present their research posters during the forum. Awards will be presented and pizza offered following the event.

For more information, contact Jill Fisher, program manager for the ESC, at jhfisher@mtu.edu or Mary Tassava, program manager for the BRC, at mltassav@mtu.edu .

Published in Tech Today.

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Nominations open for the 2010 Distinguished Dissertation Award

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Nominations are now closed for the 2010 competition.

Nominations are now open for the 2010 Council of Graduate Schools (CGS)/University Microfilms International (UMI) Distinguished Dissertation Award. This year, nominations are being accepted from dissertations in the fields of:

  1. mathematics, physical sciences, and engineering
  2. social sciences

Michigan Tech may nominate one student in each field. PhD students who have completed all of their degree requirements between July 1, 2008, and June 30, 2010, are eligible.

A nomination packet must include the following:

  1. a completed nomination form.
  2. a 10-page abstract of the dissertation, double spaced on white letter-sized paper. (pdf preferred)
  3. optional: abstract appendices containing non-textual material such as charts, tables or figures. (pdf preferred)
  4. a letter of reference from the dissertation advisor.
  5. a letter of reference from a member of the nominee’s dissertation committee.
  6. a letter of reference from a person chosen by the nominee.

The letters of reference should address the significance and quality of the dissertation work.

Nominations should be delivered to Debra Charlesworth in the Graduate School no later than 4 p.m. on June 30.  Contact Debra (ddc@mtu.edu) if you have any questions about the competition.  See also the Council for Graduate School’s announcement page.

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