February 2009

"Faculty"

• Dr. Boon S. Ooi, an associate professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering , has been elected to the 2009 SPIE Fellows of the Society. SPIE is an international society advancing light-based research. Fellows are elected from members who make contributions to the fields of optics, photonics, and imaging through their achievements and service to the field. Ooi has been honored for his contributions to semiconductor photonic integration. He is currently working on the development of a more efficient yet less expensive broadband semiconductor laser.
• John Chen, former dean and professor emeritus of Chemical Engineering, discussed the global energy challenge with students and faculty on Friday, January 23 in his presentation, The World’s Energy and Environmental Challenges. Chen encouraged students to study energy not only to find better ways to conserve current sources, but to discover new alternatives to our present energy supply. Along with his teaching career in chemical and mechanical engineering, Chen served for a year as president of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). His main research focus has been new energy sources with environmental sustainability.
• Dr. Sudhakar Neti, professor of Mechanical Engineering & Mechanics, and four other Lehigh researchers recently received a $1.5-million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. Once harnessed, solar energy is cleaner and more versatile than the more widely used fossil fuels. Neti along with Wojciech Misiolek, professor of Materials Science & Engineering, John Chen, former dean and professor emeritus of Chemical Engineering , Kemal Tuzla, professor of practice in Chemical Engineering, and Alparslan Oztekin, associate professor of Mechanical Engineering & Mechanics are working on ways to store the captured energy. While they are currently conducting lab experiments in a packed bed reactor, the eventual plan is to design and implement a full-scale model that can store thermal energy in an existing power plant.

"Students"

• Five teams of seniors in Lehigh’s Integrated Business and Engineering program presented their year-long projects to their professors, fellow students, industry experts, and executives from their sponsoring companies. The companies for which these students aim to solve problems are start-ups, such as EMV Technologies which was started in 2003 by three-time Lehigh graduate and adjunct professor of Materials Science & Engineering William Van Geertruyden. The goal of the projects is to teach students to deal with all facets of a start-up company including the technical aspects and all business plans.

"Programs"

• The department of Mechanical Engineering & Mechanics will present, as part of their Spring 2009 Seminar Series, Dr. Jianping Fu and Micro/Nanosystems for Rapid Biomolecule Analysis and Stem Cell Research on Friday, January 30, 2009 at 4:10pm in Packard Laboratory, room 466. Fu is an American Heart Association postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Bioengineering and the University of Pennsylvania with a research focus on BioMEMS/NEMS, mechanbiology, stem cell biology, and applying microfabrication technology to illuminate biological systems.
• The Lehigh University chapter of the National Society of Leadership and Success, a student group connected to the Enterprise Systems Center, will be hosting Colonel Art Athens from the U.S. Naval Academy to discuss leadership and ethics. He will speak on Thursday, February 5, 2009 from 6:30-8:00pm in Perella Auditorium (Rauch Business Center). Among his many accomplishments, Colonel Athens has served as a professor at the Naval Academy, a Marine Corps Officer, and a White House Fellow under President Reagan.
• As part of the 2009 Khan Lecture Series , Dr. Leslie E. Robertson of Leslie E. Robertson Associates, R.L.L.P. in New York City will present The Architect & the Structural Engineer-Partners in Design on Friday, February 20, 2009 at 4:10pm in Sinclair Laboratory Auditorium. A civil engineer, Robertson has completed the structural design of such buildings as the World Trade Center, the Bank of China Tower, and the Miho Museum Bridge in Japan. In his presentation, Robertson will discuss the need of the Engineer and the Architect to work together and use both perspectives in the design of a structure. The Khan Lecture Series is an annual spring semester event that honors Dr. Fazlur Khan and his legacy in structural engineering and architecture by hosting speakers in that discipline. The series will continue in March and April.
• Engineers from Lehigh’s Energy Research Center (ERC) have been working to install combustion optimization technology at coal-fired plants in China. Boiler OP, technology created by the ERC in the 1990s, has been used in numerous plants in the United States. Many coal-fired plants in the U.S. use some form of this technology to remove lung-damaging nitrogen oxide—the cause of smog when it interacts with sunlight—from emissions. The ERC has been working since June 2008 to prepare the plant for the technology and will return in March 2009 to install the Boiler OP software.

     

P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science
Lehigh University • Packard Laboratory, 19 Memorial Drive West, Bethlehem, PA 18015 • (610) 758-4025