October 2009

Faculty

• Arup K. SenGupta, professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering and of chemical engineering, received another international honor for his efforts to provide arsenic-free drinking water to people all over the world. Recently, he was recognized for improving the water quality of more than 200,000 people. His research was published in "Better World Report 2009: Innovations from Academic Research That Positively Impact Global Health" and will be sent to federal government agencies and international companies.
• Under the advisement of James Ricles, the Bruce G. Johnson Professor of Structural Engineering, and Richard Sause, ATLSS director and Joseph T. Stuart Professor of Structural Engineering, researchers at Lehigh's ATLSS Center (Advanced Technology for Large Structural Systems) are working to improve the resilience of buildings and other structures. Using a new high-performance computing test, researchers are able to evaluate the performance of braces, structural elements and the building itself under extreme stress. Diagonal braces were added to muffle the effects of the earthquake, hopefully reducing loss of life and damage.
• Joachim Grenestedt, professor of Mechanical Engineering & Mechanics, achieved a five-and-a-half years goal to set a new U.S. land speed record in his enclosed streamlined motorcycle, better known as his streamliner. At a speed of 133.165 miles per hour, he beat the previous record for 12-cc engines running on gasoline, by over 7.5 miles per hour. Grenestedt had to consider the composite materials of his streamliner, and not just speed capabilities, in order to beat the salt and wind of the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah where he raced.
• Terry Hart, professor of practice in the department of Mechanical Engineering & Mechanics, was appointed Community Service Chairman for the Da Vinci Science Center's 2010 Science Hall of Fame Awards. Hart's experience as an astronaut and his connections within the science academia world make him a great fit for the center. Designed for those who are interested in science of all kinds, the center was originally a part of Lehigh, until it went private in 1999.
• In an effort to promote optimization in the engineering world, whether through faster computer chips or more efficient supply chains, the 12th Annual Simon Steven Lecture committee invited Tamás Terlaky, professor and chair of the department of Industrial & Systems Engineering, to speak in Leuven, Germany. In his talk, Terlaky emphasized the necessity of interdisciplinary work, in order to achieve optimization. He discussed the impact polynomial time algorithms had on efficient and competitive engineering.
• Dan Frangopol, chair of Structural Engineering & Architecture; Le-Wu Lu and Ben T. Yen, emeritus professors of Structural Engineering; and Dong-Ning Wang, '98 Ph.D., a visiting research scholar and scientist, have agreed to help build a bridge on campus in 2012, as part of the Chinese Bridge Project. The interdisciplinary venture aims to unite Lehigh and China through curriculum development, study abroad opportunities and the final construction of a bridge. The project is being funded by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation.
• The department of Computer Science & Engineering received a congressional appropriation totaling nearly $1 million to work toward building a national resource for document analysis and exploitation, building on an existing relationship between Lehigh and BBN Technologies in Massachusetts. Henry Baird, Dan Lopresti and Hank Korth, three professors in Computer Science & Engineering, serve as the principal investigators for the project.
• John Spletzer, Computer Science & Engineering professor, received a National Science Foundation CAREER Development Award to investigate smart wheelchair technologies for navigating urban environments. The recognition came with $480,000. Spletzer is the fourth recipient of a CAREER award in the department of CSE. Professors Jeff Heflin, Hector Munoz-Avila and Brian Davison also currently have CAREER awards.
• Gang Tan, Computer Science & Engineering professor received $265,048 from the NSF for his latest research, "TC: Small: Collaborative Research: Securing Multilingual Software Systems." Tan hopes to end the need to check for errors and write corrective code when using the programming language C in multilingual software.

Students

• Materials Science & Engineering students continued to show they are at the top of their field at the annual International Metallographic Contest. Brian Gerard, '09 M.S. in materials science and engineering, won the Jacquet –Lucas Best in Show Award for his defect-free magnesium, while Anthony Ventura, '11, took first place in artistic color microscopy for his "Skull Island" picture of bamboo tongs. Two other student groups took first and second in the George Kehl Plaque competition for undergraduate student entries in metals and metal alloys. They work with Wojciech Misiolek, professor of materials science and engineering, and Samuel Lawrence, research scientist and director of Lehigh's metallography labs.
• A team comprised of first-year students Radek Dabrowski, Andy Douglas and Andrew Bassler as well as a substitute junior, won the first Engineering Day Competition on Sept. 18. Under the direction of David Angstadt, professor in the department of Mechanical Engineering, the group took home the Engineering Day Cup, a prize for their department to display until next year's contest. Hosted by The Rossin Junior Fellows and The National Society of Black Engineers, the day aimed to bring all the different engineers at Lehigh together for some logic, problem-solving, building and friendly rivalry.

Programs

• It's the fresh idea – the spark – that makes all the difference, especially to the students considering a future in entrepreneurship, who attended the Fall 2009 Innovation and Leadership Residency kick-off on September 3. The event, hosted by Lehigh's Enterprise Systems Center, Originate Ventures, and OpenCourt, introduced students to the program that will teach them to maintain creativity in the workplace and help them pitch their new ideas effectively to investors.
• The Fritz Engineering Laboratory Centennial will take place October 22-24, 2009 in celebration of legendary engineer John Fritz's investment in an up-to-date engineering laboratory at Lehigh 100 years ago. The event will include tours of campus landmarks, two half-day symposia, multiple social and networking opportunities, and a gala dinner on Saturday evening. The following speakers have been scheduled for the event:
  
  - Stephen H. Cutcliffe, professor and chairperson for the department of history at Lehigh
  - Mark Sarkisian, director of structural engineering at Skidmore Owings & Merrill
  - Kathy Caldwell, president-elect for the American Society of Civil Engineers
  - Stephen P. Pessiki, professor and chairperson for the department of civil and environmental engineering at Lehigh

• Lehigh Engineering is hosting a Computational Engineering and Science/HPC workshop on October 5 and 6, 2009. The event will allow preeminent researchers from all disciplines of science and engineering to explore the challenges and opportunities in computational methods in science and engineering research. Speakers include professors from across fields and disciplines, a Fellow from Argonne National Laboratory, a chief in the Theoretical Biophysics Section of the National Institutes of Health and the director for the Office of Cyberinfrastructure at the National Science Foundation.
• The William E. Schiesser Lecture Series, supported by a fund established by Dolores T. Schiesser for an annual discussion about interdisciplinary scientific computation, kicked off its 2009 series on Wednesday, Sept 30. The series, sponsored by the department of Chemical Engineering, is named in honor of the Lehigh alumnus and professor emeritus of chemical engineering and mathematics. Professor Kristin R. Swanson from the University of Washington will present a lecture titled, "Patient-Specific Mathematical Oncology changing The Way Cancer Is Treated."

     

P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science
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