Ela Sikora, Corrosion Lab Research Associate, and Elizabeth Montgomery, doctoral student, recently hosted middle school girls in the Engineering Science and Mechanics Corrosion Laboratory. They talked to the students about corrosion of materials in the human body. The girls then had a chance to conduct a lab based on what they had learned. The participants were from Uniontown Area, St. Marys Catholic, Laurel Highlands, and Brownville Area schools.

Special thanks to David Meredith, associate professor of general engineering; Fayette Campus, for coordinating the event with the Corrosion Laboratory.

Albert Segall, associate professor of engineering science and mechanics and distinguished visiting professor at the American University in Cairo, delivered an invited short course, "Thermal Stresses in Piping and Vessels" to the mechanical engineering department at the American University of Cairo in Cairo, Egypt, April 17, 2007. The course was given collaboratively with the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME).

Dr. Segall also gave four invited seminars titled as follows:

“Dual- Lasers and the Micro-Manipulation of Transient Stress-States: Explorations from Welding/Joining to the Amelioration of Damage at Multiple Scales”,

“Science Fiction and New Opportunities for Engineering Instruction”,

“Ti and Boron-Nitride Self-Lubricating Coating Systems Manufactured by High Velocity Particle Consolidation”, and

“Sliding Wear Behaviors of Cryogenically Treated Alloys and the Estimation of Interfacial Temperatures using a New and Analytical Inverse Approach”

Richard Powers, Swanlund Chair and professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, presented ''Cognitive Science, Disability and Selfhood: A Conversation with Novelist Richard Powers'' on April 26.

Joining him were Steven Schiff, Brush Chair and professor of engineering; Chloe Silverman, assistant professor in the Science, Technology, and Society program; Elana Farace, associate professor of neurosurgery and health evaluation sciences, College of Medicine; and Jenell Johnson, graduate student in English.

Chandan Kumar (Ph.D., ESMCH) has been awarded a University Graduate Fellowship for 2007-08. University Graduate Fellowships support graduate students of the highest caliber whose goals are to develop and contribute to scholarship and creative accomplishments.

Mr. Kumar is conducting doctoral research under the supervision of Professor Lawrence Friedman.

Mr. Kumar is one of only five engineering graduate students to receive a University Graduate Fellowship for 2007-08. We congratulate him on his outstanding success.

The Student Society of Engineering Science recently elected their 2007-08 officers. The officers are:

SES President - Dana Scott
Undergraduate Council President - Abdalla Nassar
Vice President - Bobby Parchuri
Secretary - Nghia (Dai) Nguyen
Treasurer - Stacey Pagliocca
Social Chair - Aaron Todd (1st semester) & Brittany Hedrick (2nd semester)

Congratulations to the new officers! We look forward to working with you next year!

Alok Singh
Senior Scientist, Naval Research Lab

Wednesday, May 2, 2007
3:35 p.m.
114 Earth-Engineering Sciences Bldg.

Sanjay Joshi
Penn State Department of Industrial Engineering

Wednesday, April 25, 2007
3:35 p.m.
114 Earth-Engineering Sciences Bldg.

Mr. Alan Berger, engineering science senior had the opportunity to serve as a symposium assistant at the Materials Research Society (MRS) Spring Meeting held April 9-13, 2007, in San Francisco, California. As a symposium assistant, Mr. Berger provided technical support for presenters as well as interacted with them throughout the symposium. Mr. Berger participated in the MRS Spring meeting with his faculty research advisor Dr. S. Ashok, Professor of Engineering Science.

CNE Seminar

Speaker: Dr. Jiping He, Professor of Bioengineering at Arizona State University, Tempe

on Thursday, April 26, 2007
Where: 108 Wartik Lab
Time: 4:00 PM

Host: Dr. Steven Schiff, Director, Center for Neural Engineering

Congratulations to Mr. Alan Berger who will represent the engineering science class of spring 2007 as the engineering science student marshal. Mr. Berger is completing concurrent degrees in both engineering science and physics. He is also completing a minor in mathematics.

Mr. Berger has chosen Christine Masters, assistant professor of engineering science to be his faculty escort.

Congratulations to Engineering Science senior Luke Breon for his recent success in the Penn State Undergraduate Research Exhibition held April 4, 2007, on the University Park campus. Mr. Breon's poster titled "Guided-Wave Tomographic Imaging of Wall Thinning in Pipes" placed first in the engineering category. Mr. Breon is conducting his senior capstone and design research project under the guidance of Joseph L. Rose, Paul Morrow Professor, and the Ultrasonic Non-Destructive Evaluation Laboratory.

John Waldeisen, Engineering Science senior, has been awarded a John W. White Graduate Fellowship by the Senate Committee on Student Life.

Instituted at Penn State in honor of former University pastor John W. White, the $1,000 fellowship was established to aid graduating seniors who are planning further study.

The award winners are selected through interviews conducted by the University Faculty Committee on Student Life, are seniors who have completed four years of undergraduate study at Penn State and are graduating with highest distinction.

Mr. Waldeisen will be recognized for his outstanding achievement at the next meeting of the University Faculty Senate which will be held on Tuesday, April 24, 2007, at 112 Kern Graduate Building beginning at 1:30 PM.

Congratulations to John on his outstanding success.

Engineering Science undergraduate Jesse A. Rodgers has been selected for a summer 2007 internship in China. He will be involved with applied research at the China University of Mining and Technology in Beijing China.

Mr. Rodgers has also been selected to participate in the German Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS7) Study Abroad program in Germany this fall semester. The program runs for ten months and is comprised of three phases including an orientation, language study, and a semester at the Munich University of Applied Sciences. At the conclusion of the semester, Mr. Rodgers will participating in an internship with a German company for roughly four months.

We congratulate Mr. Rodgers on his outstanding achievement and wish him the best of success in his new endeavors.

Charles E. Bakis, professor of engineering science and mechanics, delivered a short course on "Introduction to Classical Lamination Theory for Composite Plates" to the Structural Engineering Department of the University of Naples (Italy) on March 13-16, 2007. During his visit to the University of Naples, Professor Bakis also gave an invited seminar on "Durability of Glass Fiber Reinforced Bars in Conctrete: Bond and Tension" on March 16, 2007.

Dr. Bakis is the coordinator of the Composites Manufacturing Technology Center. His research activities center on the design, manufacturing, test, and analysis of fiber reinforced composite materials for lightweight structures and concrete reinforcement.

Merton C. Flemings, Toyota Professor Emeritus of Materials Processing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and 2007 Franklin Institute laureate, will visit for a symposium April 22-23.

The visit will include a presentation by Flemings, titled “Solidification, Innovation and Invention.” The two-day event at the Nittany Lion Inn on the University Park campus will also feature keynote speeches, research presentations, a reception and a dinner.

Flemings received the Franklin Institute’s 2007 Benjamin Franklin Medal for outstanding contributions to understanding the fundamental and technological aspects of the solidification of metallic alloys, including research leading to the development of a new industry known as semi-solid metalworking.

He has been active nationally and internationally in strengthening the field of materials science and engineering and in the delineation of new directions for the field. He is the author or co-author of 300 papers, 31 patents and two books in the fields of solidification science and engineering, foundry technology and materials processing. Flemings has received more than a dozen awards and medals and is a member or Fellow in multiple professional societies. He also serves as the director of the Lemelson-MIT program, which aims to honor and inspire inventiveness in young people.

The events are being co-hosted by the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics, the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, the College of Engineering and the Materials Research Institute.

For additional information contact Cheryl Markley at cmarkley@psu.edu or 814-863-7966.

Former Penn State professor, Robert M. Haythornthwaite, passed away at the age of 84. Haythornthwaite, who died Feb. 24, served as the head of Penn State's engineering mechanics department from 1967 to 1974.

In addition to his time with Penn State, Haythornthwaite was a faculty member with the University of Sheffield in England, Brown University and the University of Michigan, finishing his career in education at Temple University. In addition, he worked with the Building Research Station in Watford, England.

Judith Todd calls it a basic science project, to understand the physics of how to sustain laser plasma - a bubble of ionized gas created by absorbing the power of a laser beam or beams - and then how to use the plasma to develop novel compositions and microstructures on surfaces.

Cheng Dong
Penn State Department of Bioengineering

Wednesday, April 11, 2007
3:35 p.m.
114 Earth-Engineering Sciences Bldg.

Spring cleaning was done this last week as engineering science and mechanics students worked in conjunction with Penn State's Office of Physical Plant to paint the hallway outside of the department's laboratories in the Research West Building. Thanks to engineering science and mechanics senior research technologist Ardell Hosterman for coordinating the activities and photographing our paint bespeckled crew that included Brittany Hedrick, Dustin Bauknight, Nathan Simmons, Matthew Verlinich, Brian Bontempo, Ngia Nguyen, John Mulry, and Jeffrey Witmer.

The Research West Building houses the Center for Innovative Sintered Products, the Composites Laboratory and the Center for Multi-Scale Waver Materials.