Humans of Michigan Tech

Category: Faculty and Staff

Gowtham ’07, Director of Research Computing, Information Technology

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A Michigan Tech faculty member in his rainbow sunglasses skis on the trails in the Great Bear Chase.
Cross-country skiing is one of the core activities that helps Gowtham joyfully connect with both his personal development and his community. Here, he competes in a past Great Bear Chase. This year, he was an event volunteer.

“Coming from a middle class family in India, we didn’t really have the means for me to pursue studies abroad. During my undergrad and master’s, I worked as a proofreader for textbook publishers and a tutor for students. I earned the equivalent of about $20 each month and $19 of it went to my parents to help offset family costs. The remaining dollar covered my occasional bus fare to science lectures across town and a snack afterward with the speaker/friends. In mid-to-late 2001, Dr. Pushpa Murthy (then chair of Michigan Tech’s chemistry department) was traveling through India. One of my master’s teachers knew her well and arranged a couple of meetings. A few correspondences followed with Drs. Ravi Pandey and John Jaszczak (Physics) and they agreed to take a chance on me without the GRE (Graduate Record Examinations) or TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language)—I couldn’t afford them. Upon learning that I couldn’t afford the postage, Dr. Murthy literally carried my application to Michigan Tech. My teachers, who had encouraged me and been willing to pay the application fee out of their own hard-earned money, convinced a bank to give me an educational loan that covered travel expenses.

On my very first day in the US, there was some confusion between International Programs and Services (IPS) and the Indian Students Association (ISA). So, no one came to pick me up at the airport. Susan (UP Health) and Owen Mills (MSE) were on the same flight and waited a while to make sure I wasn’t stranded. Susan gave me her home phone number and asked me to call if no one came to pick me up. I called an hour later and she drove all the way back to the airport, picked me up, took me home and made me a really good meal. Owen made a few phone calls and I ended up getting better housing than what ISA might have arranged for me.

After I earned my PhD in 2007, I worked for AT&T research and development headquartered in Middleton, New Jersey, for about a year. I met some really cool people there and in the community that I am still in touch with. But I missed my Yoop and the academic setting. After three failed attempts at various job openings at Tech, Dr. Max Seel and the physics department took a chance on me again in 2009 and brought me back as a postdoctoral fellow.

Susan’s actions on day one had been my first glimpse into how tight-knit this community is. My first steps to be a part of it came when I played softball with Team Fiziks and the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church teams for many years, and when I moved out of Daniell Heights and rented a room from David Bezotte (former reference librarian at Tech). The combination of the two introduced me to so many folks—talented musicians, artists, cooks, brewers and more—from our community. Food, running, and skiing are three of my favorite ways to continue nurturing that sense of community.

A faculty member in shiny sunnies signals 'I love you" with trees in soft focus in the background on the Michigan Tech Campus.
Gowtham, right, built a kindness and collaboration-over-competition rubric into his courses. Students who help each other understand concepts or make suggestions that improve his teaching style and materials are rewarded.

I don’t remember a time when I haven’t been a fan of food. It’s one of those lowest common denominators that all of us need, most of us enjoy, and that invariably tastes better in a communal setting. Preparing and sharing food is a lovely way to show someone we care about them. Since 2017, I have pursued a goal to share more meals with friends than I eat by myself. Cooking dinner for friends visiting the area or with friends in the community has been helping a great deal in achieving that goal—and resulted in one of my Instagram hashtags #DinnerWithFriends. Not every friend could meet for dinner, so that hashtag turned into #FoodWithFriends. Sharing backyard-grown fresh produce throughout summer and fall as well as baked goodies (I am almost always the recipient) led to #FoodFromFriends. The pandemic-forced isolation led to #FoodWithoutFriends (my least favorite of the hashtags).

“I didn’t really see any point in running or skiing until about 2013-14. For nearly two years, I made every conceivable excuse to not run—and when I did, it was almost always at the insistence of friends. Many of them would sacrifice their own time and distance to hang back with me and make sure I was okay, including running step-for-step in my first ever Canal Run half marathon. Those same two years also coincided with a series of academic heartbreaks—seeing exceptionally talented students not do little things correctly that would set them up for success down the road. One day, while walking home, I wondered if I needed to be a better student (i.e, take up running consistently and do the little things my friends were asking me to do for my own benefit) to be a better teacher. And that was the switching-on moment as far as sticking with running is concerned. Cross country skiing just about paralleled the same timeline as running and also stuck with me.

The more I run and ski, the more I realize I can take a problem or an issue with me, think about it (or not) without the assistance of Dr. Google and come back with a solution (or not). These sports have brought a lot of good people into my life, taken me to places that I wouldn’t have otherwise seen, and in turn, not had the chance to enjoy local cuisines. An unintended side effect of this lifestyle has been helping me get in the students’ mindset and outside of my comfort zone. It provides the new-student perspective I need when teaching courses at Michigan Tech or interacting with students in general.

Two men stand by a computer bank with a screen next to them on a laptop in Michigan Tech's Superior supercomputing facility.
During graduate school, Gowtham, shown here with Gregory Odegard, the John O. Hallquist Endowed Chair of Computational Mechanics director, was entrusted with building a high-performance computing infrastructure for the Pandey research group. His current research interests include resource allocation management and optimization of computing infrastructures as well as workflows to improve research productivity. He’ll present a workshop on revision control systems Tuesday, April 5, as part of the first ComputingMTU Showcase.

I hope my students (scientific computing) realize that I care for them as humans, individually and collectively, and their overall well-being, and not just how well they do in the course. I am fortunate enough to be involved in a field that has a very firm mathematical foundation and continuously changes with time. It’s a dichotomy that’s in line with my main teaching principle—freedom within discipline. It helps me refresh a portion of the syllabus each time the course is offered to better serve the learning needs of students. If the students can leave the course knowing a bit more about the subject matter but a lot more about their fellow classmates, I consider it a win. As interesting/boring as any given student can perceive the material, the real learning happens if the student chooses to stick with a few new practices after the course and carries them into their research projects. A bigger win for me is when I see a student undertake a couple more projects or publish a few more papers or make time for pursuing hobbies and interests that add value to their lives over the course of the rest of their stay (and beyond) at Michigan Tech.

To say that my teachers and their families have had a very profound impact on my life is an understatement. At every stage of my education, I have had teachers who went well out of their way to help me learn beyond what was prescribed in the syllabus, helping me at least see (if not understand) the interconnections, and their families treated me as one of their own. Teaching is a way I get to pay forward what my teachers did for me.

I hope we never lose the tight-knit nature of our community and our ability to put our differences aside to come together for a common cause. My advice for a new Husky? Our community is rich with plenty of resources: natural, human, tangible, and intangible. I highly recommend reaching out and asking for help when necessary. Even if the person we first approach doesn’t have the solution, they will very likely know someone else who might. And we don’t have to wait till we have reached a certain milestone in our personal or professional lives to start paying it forward to someone else in the community.”

— Gowtham ’07 #mtuhumans

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Tammy Monette, Van Pelt and Opie Library, Facilities

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A smiling woman wears a mask and a Michigan Tech polo shirt at the front of a Library desk where the toys she has collected are piled.

“The Cans for Kids–Toys for Tots idea started 10 years ago when I was working in Wadsworth Hall as a custodian on the second floor and just couldn’t believe all the cans and bottles being thrown away. I came up with the idea to collect them, and put some garbage cans out and signs up. The students were super receptive. I think we were all kind of shocked by how much we actually collected. I did the actual ‘returning’—and still do. 

The first couple of years, we donated the money to local charities. Seven years ago, we started partnering with Toys for Tots for fall semester and Husky FAN (food access network) for spring semester. That way our outreach included our local community and our campus. In the 2018-19 school year, we collected over $1,100 in cans! 

After working at Wads for 10 years, wanting a change but not wanting to leave the energy of the students, I transferred to the Library in May 2019. The Library staff were very supportive and the can collecting continued. Last holiday we collected a record-breaking $553!

In the midst of our 2020 Drop a Can–Be A FAN spring semester collection for the food pantry, COVID-19 hit and campus operations shut down. Can and bottle return centers closed. I had bags of returnables piled high in a corner of my garage and seriously thought about ending the chapter on this kind of fundraising. But in July, the return centers at local stores reopened the returnable section with a $25 daily limit and I started hauling them in again. 

This semester, campus is extremely different, to say the least. The usual hustle and bustle of the Library is replaced with quiet, masked visitors and a sadness of sorts. Can collecting continues at a snail’s pace compared to pre-pandemic. Thankfully, outside donations have fueled the project. Former co-workers, some Library staff, and random anonymous drop-offs have contributed to a surprising new record of over $650 for the Cans for Kids–Toys for Tots. Unbelievable!

The toys I choose are geared more toward the ‘believers’ as far as age goes. I usually have a cash donation as well to help cover any of the gaps that the Toys for Tots elves need to fill. The toys are picked up by Jim Mattson, the area Toys for Tots chairman and a retired Chem Eng professor from Tech! He’ll pick up this year’s collection on Monday, December 14.

My favorite part of working at Tech is the students. Throughout the past 15 years, I’ve been a cheerleader, mentor, therapist, mother, counselor, and friend. I have listened to countless stories, shared endless laughs, and offered up a whole lot of prayers for our students.

I may not be in one of the higher-paid positions at MTU, but dollar for dollar I have one of the most rewarding jobs—direct, daily contact with these young people. My hope has always been that I planted a seed with our students and someday they’ll see a Toys for Tots box or food pantry collection and donate!

For me, the holidays are about family, tradition, gratitude, laughter, and love. I am so blessed to have three grandbabies now. Through them I get to relive all the magic of Christmas again!”–Tammy Monette

#mtuhumans

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Daisuke Minakata, Civil and Environmental Engineering

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A professor in a Michigan Tech lab with seven undergraduate students
Minakata in the lab with students. Many have had the opportunity to do undergraduate research with him—and many more have the chance to talk to him about his research in the summer webinar series Husky Bites.

I was born and raised in Japan. I came to the US for the first time as a high school exchange student, just for one month. I lived in Virginia, in a place called Silverplate, a suburb of Washington, D.C. I went to Thomas Jefferson Science and Technology High School, which was the sister school of my Japanese high school, and one of the nation’s top scientific high schools. And I did like it. This triggered my study abroad dream. I was impressed by the high school education system in the US. It’s one that never just looks for the systematic solution, but values process, logic, and discussion-based classes.
I loved watching a beautiful image of planet Earth, one with a very clear sky and blue water, during my high school days. However, as I began to learn how life on Earth suffers many difficult environmental problems, including air pollution and water contamination, I also learned that environmental engineers can be leaders who help solve the Earth’s most difficult sustainability problems. That is when I decided to become an engineer.
In my undergraduate curriculum, the water quality and treatment classes I took were the toughest subjects to get an A in. I had to work the hardest to understand the content. So, naturally, I decided to enter this discipline as I got to know about water engineering more. And then, there’s our blue planet, the image. Water makes the Earth look blue from space.

The Blue Planet. (NASA image)


While in college, during my graduate studies, I took a one-year leave from Kyoto University in Japan and studied at University of Pennsylvania as a visiting graduate student. Then I moved to Atlanta, Georgia, in order to get a PhD at Georgia Institute of Technology. I accepted my position at Michigan Tech in 2013.
I’m now a father of two. Both are Yoopers, born here in the UP of Michigan. My wife and I really enjoy skiing (downhill and cross country) with the kids each winter. I do like all the cities I have lived in. The place I am currently living is our two kids’ birthplace, and our real home. Of course it’s our favorite place, after our Japanese hometown. –Daisuke Minakata, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering #mtuhumans

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Tony Pinar, Electrical and Computer Engineering lecturer and researcher, MTU grad

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I was raised near the small town of Trout Creek, Michigan. I’ve always been obsessed with figuring out how things work. I was also interested in electricity from a young age, thanks to my dad, an electrician, who had me help him wire houses. These led me to pursue electrical engineering at Michigan Tech, where I learned EE was so much more than power distribution.
I had the opportunity to work on many interesting projects as a student, both applied and research-based. As an undergrad I contributed to projects such as a solar-tracking solar panel, a Tesla coil, and an industry-sponsored project concerning wireless power transfer. In graduate school I worked on projects involving autonomous underwater gliders, 3D metal printers, and explosive hazard detection using ground penetrating radar; my dissertation focused on the algorithms I developed and used for much of the explosive hazard detection problem.
What I like most about teaching electrical engineering is that teaching is like a puzzle where one may have to take a difficult concept, reduce it to digestible pieces, and deliver them to fresh minds in a way to maximize understanding and insight. That challenge is what drives me to be a better teacher. It keeps me on my toes, forces me to constantly identify holes in my knowledge, and drives me to continuously strive to learn new things.
I live in Hancock with my wife, Noelle, and our two boys. If I’m not spending time outdoors in the Keweenaw with my family, you’ll probably find me playing guitar or tinkering with a side project. –Tony Pinar, lecturer, researcher, and electrical engineering graduate (BS, MS, and PhD), Michigan Tech Electrical and Computer Engineering Department #mtuhumans

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Guy Meadows, Research Professor, Marine Engineering Lab Director

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I was born and raised in the City of Detroit, and attended Detroit Public Schools. When I went to college I had to work to make ends meet. I got a job as a cook in the dorm, and eventually worked my way up to lead cook. I was cooking breakfast for 1,200 people each morning. One of my fellow classmates was studying engineering, too. He had a job working for a professor doing research on storm waves and beaches. I had no idea I could be hired by a professor and get paid money to work on the beach! I quit my job in the kitchen and went to work for that professor instead. I had been a competitive swimmer in high school, and the beach was where I really wanted to be.
When I graduated with my degree, I went to work for Ford. I have to thank my first boss for assigning me to work on rear axle shafts. After about two months, I called my former professor to see if I could come back to college.
My advice for students just starting out is to spend your first year exploring all your options. Find out what you really want to do. I had no idea I could turn a mechanical engineering degree into a job working on the beach. Turns out, I could⁠—and I’m still doing it today.
Because I grew up in Detroit, I had the opportunity to live, work, and grow in a very diverse community. While a faculty member at the University of Michigan, I was part of a great team that started the M-STEM Academies and became its founding director. The M-STEM mission is ‘to strengthen and diversify the cohort of students who receive their baccalaureate degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), with the ultimate goal of increasing the number and diversity of students who are well prepared to seek career opportunities or to pursue graduate or professional training in the STEM disciplines in the new global economy.’ This effort has been a very important part of my journey. –Guy Meadows, Director, Marine Engineering Laboratory, Robbins Professor of Sustainable Marine Engineering, and Research Professor, Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics #mtuhumans

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Rebecca Ong, assistant professor, chemical engineering

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Rebecca Ong preps a switchgrass sample in the lab.

I’m a born Yooper who grew up in a small town in the northern lower peninsula of Michigan and came back to the UP for school. I love the Copper Country and MTU students so much, I managed to persuade my husband to come back to Houghton five years ago. Now I live near campus with my husband, daughter, our Torbie cat and our curly-haired dog. We read science fiction and fantasy stories; play board games; kayak on the canals and lakes while watching for signs of wildlife; make new things out of yarn, fabric, wood, and plastic (though not all at the same time) and practice herbology and potions in the garden and kitchen.
I first became interested in engineering in high school when I learned it was a way to combine math and science to solve problems. I loved math and science and thought that sounded brilliant. However, I didn’t understand at the time what that really meant. I thought “problems” meant the types of problems you solve in math class. Since then I’ve learned these problems are major issues that are faced by all of humanity, such as: How do we enable widespread access to clean energy? How do we produce sufficient amounts of safe vaccines and medicine, particularly in a crisis? How do we process food products, while maintaining safety and nutritional quality? As a chemical engineer I am able to combine my love of biology, chemistry, physics, and math to create novel solutions to society’s problems.

One thing I love about MTU is that the university gives students tons of hands-on opportunities to solve real problems, not just problems out of a textbook (though we still do a fair number of those!). These are the types of problems our students will be solving when they go on to their future careers. –Rebecca Ong, assistant professor, chemical engineering

#mtuhumans #mtugrad

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Brad King, Professor in Space Systems, Aerospace Enterprise Advisor

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A man in a blue shirt with blurred background of equipment in a mechanical engineering aerospace lab smiles at the camera.

I have always been interested in building things—long before I knew that was called “engineering.” I don’t recall when I became fascinated with space but it was at a very early age. I have embarrassing photos of me dressed as an astronaut for Halloween and I may still even have an adult-sized astronaut costume somewhere in my closet—not saying.
The desire to explore space is what drives me. Very early in my studies I realized that the biggest impediment to space exploration is propulsion. Space is just so big it’s hard to get anywhere. So I dedicated my professional life to developing new space propulsion technologies. There is other life in our solar system. That is a declarative statement. It’s time that we find it. The moons of Jupiter and Saturn hold great promise and I’m determined to see proof in my lifetime.
I was born and raised just north of Houghton (yes, there actually is some habitable environment north of Houghton). I received my BS, MS, and PhD from the University of Michigan. I spent time traveling around the country working at NASA in Houston, NIST in Boulder, and realized that all of my personal hobbies and proclivities were centered around the geography and climate of northern Michigan. I returned in 2000 and began my career as a professor at MTU. I enjoy fishing, boating, hockey, and spent more than 15 years running my dogsled team all over the Keweenaw Peninsula. –Brad King, Henes Endowed Professor in Space Systems, MTU Aerospace Enterprise Advisor #mtuhumans

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John Schneiderhan, Van Pelt and Opie Library technologist

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A man wearing a Michigan Tech Huskies face mask and a plastic shield working at a 3D printer in a library.

What I miss most of all are the students and their energy. We see many aspects of the students’ lives here as the weeks pass each semester. The year has a flow. The library is a safe space, an oasis where students come to find solace, dedicate time to their research and study, eat, sleep, or collaborate on group projects.

One of my responsibilities is scheduling and coordinating 3D prints for students and patrons. I can see the 3D printers and scanner right outside my office door. Normally, I have a group of regular students that navigate to the devices with curiosity or interest in being creative or innovative.

Today it is just David Holden and myself here in the library with the occasional facilities staff member doing their part and helping wherever they can. There is a glimpse of normalcy within our social distance collaboration with the incredible materials sciences and engineering students working on the 3D-printed personal protection equipment (PPE) project. They bring so much value and energy to the production. They deliver insight, technical innovation, compassion, and conservation to the cause. The atmosphere is completely different without the students, without the staff, without people. It’s not the library. It’s just a building. It’s a building where David and I have been coming to work on production, to do our best to help and support the health of the community. #mtuhumans

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Nancy Byers Sprague

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Woman standing outside

I genuinely care about students and I think that comes through the way I interact with students and the way I help some students not only professionally but personally. My spouse and I have a sailboat and we bring students on board all the time. We teach them a little bit about sailing and let them have that wonderful adventure in this beautiful part of the world. And they are always invited over for dinner or we take them out to eat. We have big group meals at Thanksgiving and Easter; we invite just about everybody and we have between 30 and 60 people. We make—mostly my partner makes—13 or 14 different dishes so people don’t have to bring anything unless they really want to; desserts are always welcome! We try to build community with students and other people in the area. My life really does revolve around students. I haven’t been working in the Graduate School my entire time at Michigan Tech, which has been 41 years, but in some ways, it’s been all 41 years that my life has revolved around students. Sailing and meals have been going on for a lot of that time. 

My dad was the head of the math department here for a while. Back that many years ago, 60 years or so, they didn’t have what you would call a robust menu for students who were in the residence halls who were vegetarian. So my dad invited some of the Indian students to our home and asked them to teach him how to cook like their mothers cooked. The students wrote home for recipes, my dad started to learn how to cook Indian food, and we’ve had friendships with Indian students in my parents’ home since I was one. 

Fun is a very good term to describe my life. My life is full of fun. I think—despite all of the philosophers and all of the really deep meanings in life that people propose or discover or realize—I think the meaning of life is to have fun. And my motto is anything worth doing is worth overdoing and my very decorated office is an example of my philosophy in action. It’s a wonderful life. 

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Tyler Shelast

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Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at Michigan Technological University, National Strength and Conditioning Association-certified strength and conditioning specialist. Professional Hockey Player — 2008-2013.

During the school year, my job is more like 6 to 6 instead of 9 to 5. Sometimes teams work out four days a week, sometimes they go to two or three, it depends on the season. Getting to work with Michigan Tech athletes is the best part of my day.

My job allows me to teach and educate young athletes on the shortcomings I experienced when I was an athlete. I had a tough road and went through a lot of pain and suffering. My goal is to help these athletes learn and understand that they can take anything that’s thrown at them. I learned more from my downfall than I did from my success, and ultimately, those are the lessons I want to share with Michigan Tech athletes — to help them grow out of darkness.

In a week it’s groups, office time, more groups, practices, and then during the hockey season, I go on the ice for hockey practice daily and am there for the team at all the games. I can’t coach, but I play an integral part in hockey due to my former playing. I really like to work out, that’s probably my favorite thing, so I try to work out once a day.

I have a lot of pride in everything I do that is Michigan Tech because I want it to excel. I want us to be the best at everything. We’re kind of like a hidden little snowglobe type place, but we need to embrace that because it’s what makes us special. Michigan Tech’s a very proud school, so I feel lucky to have a hand in shaping our culture. There’s so much that goes into seeing student-athletes grow, I mean, that’s ultimately why I’m in it, why I love being here. I’m very fortunate to work with great people.

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