May 2008

“Faculty”

• Dr. William Pierce ’58 (B.S., Chemical Engineering) will discuss the concept of heart replacement during the Lehigh Reunion College program on May 16, 2008, in 200 Linderman Library. Pierce is known as creator of the Pierce-Donachy Ventricular Assist Device, one of only two air-driven, temporary artificial heart designs approved for use in humans by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Bioengineering professor Samir Ghadiali of Mechanical Engineering & Mechanics, will discuss his current work in the biomechanics of the human lung.
• Nelson Tansu, P.C. Rossin Assistant Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Volkmar Dierolf, an associate professor of physics, recently received a three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to study methods of improving the efficiency of white LEDs. The $600,000 award, which is being matched by $150,000 in additional funding from the state of Pennsylvania, is being provided through the DOE’s Solid-State Lighting Core Technology Research (CTR) Program. The agency’s goal is to develop, by 2025, inexpensive and long-lasting solid-state lighting technologies that achieve 50-percent efficiency while reproducing the spectrum of sunlight.
• Sibel Pamukcu, professor of geotechnical engineering and associate chair of Civil & Environmental Engineering, presented her work during the Spring Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry. The conference was focused on "Electrochemistry for a Healthy Planet" -- concepts, developments and applications of electrochemistry that can contribute to environmental protection. Dr. Pamucku's talk was entitled "Electrically Enhanced Transformations on Clay Surfaces," a discussion on the use of electrochemistry in subsurface environmental clean-up activities.
• Hector Munoz-Avila, associate professor of Computer Science & Engineering, has been selected to receive the Lehigh Class of 1961 Professorship for the 08-09 and 09-10 academic years. This professorship "recognizes faculty members who have achieved the rank of associate professor and have shown distinction in teaching, research, and service.”
• Lehigh Nanotech LLC, an environmental-cleanup company that markets nanoparticle technology, was named one of the nation’s top 25 technology-collaboration stories by the Association of University Technology Managers. The company’s product is the result of research conducted by Weixan Zhang, associate professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering. Lehigh Nanotech has completed remediation projects in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Ohio and Florida. Treated sites include landfills, an electronics manufacturing plant, a vinyl chloride manufacturing plant, chemical plants and U.S. Department of Defense facilities.


“Students”


• Computer Science graduate student Stephen Lee-Urban received the 2008 Graduate Leadership Award from the Graduate Student Life office. This University-wide award was conferred to Stephen for his efforts in improving graduate student life at Lehigh.
• Three graduate students have received the annual Kenneth A. Earhart Award from Lehigh’s Emulsion Polymer Institute (EPI) in recognition of their research. Megan B. Casey, Jinmo Hong and Lisa M. Spagnola, all Ph.D. candidates in Chemical Engineering, received the award at EPI’s annual review meeting dinner in March. Casey’s research project is titled “Study of Monomer Droplets in Miniemulsions.” She is advised by Mohamed El-Aasser, university provost and professor of Chemical Engineering, and E. David Sudol, EPI principal research scientist. Hong studies the “Effect of Agitation on Coagulum Formation in Emulsion Polymerization,” and is advised by Andrew Klein, professor of chemical engineering, by Sudol and fellow EPI principal research scientist Eric S. Daniels. Spagnola’s advisors are El-Aasser, Klein, Daniels and EPI principal research scientist Victoria L. Dimonie. Her research topic is the “Miniemulsion Polymerization of Fatty Acid-Derived Monomers.” Each of the award winners will present their work at the American Chemical Society’s national meeting in Philadelphia in August.


“Programs”


• On April 11, more than 60 area middle-school girls visited Lehigh for CHOICES. The annual one-day program, sponsored by the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science and the Lehigh chapter of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), encourages girls to prepare for engineering as a possible career by enrolling in math and science courses in high school. The CHOICES program also hosts a weeklong daycamp in July; see www.lehigh.edu/choices for details.

     

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