Engineering Science and Mechanics is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Andrew Miller to the Information Technology staff. Mr. Miller will be responsible for the department's database server environment and also for leadership of database and web applications that will assist the department in meeting key initiatives. Mr. Miller holds both a bachelors and masters engineering degrees from Penn State.

Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Charles Godfrey Binder Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics, has been appointed the Chair of the Publications Ethics Committee of SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering.

This committee is responsible for investigating claims of plagiarism, intentional and significant misrepresentation of data, and similar issues.

To find out more about the Journal of Nanophotonics edited by Lakhtakia, visit this website.

Congratulations to Ardell Hosterman, ESM Lab Support Technician, who has been named the 2007 Barber-shopper of the Year by the Nittany Knights Barbershop Chorus. Mr. Hosterman has been a member and singer with the Nittany Knights for over a decade. Mr. Hosterman was recognized him for his leadership and contributions to the organization.

Today's issue of the Center Daily Times provides full coverage of the recognition.

The Nittany Knights are a volunteer non-profit group that perform locally in many community venues. They hold an annual show the first Saturday of each May for the purpose of raising money for local charities and for the promotion of music programs in schools.

This is the second time in less than ten years that Mr. Hosterman has been recognized for his service.

Dr. Charles E. Bakis, professor of engineering science and mechanics, has received the University's highest distinction with the title of Distinguished Professor.

Professor Bakis has been a faculty member in the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics at The Pennsylvania State University for 19 years, conducting pioneering research in composite materials. Applications of these materials are found in communications satellites, military aircraft, rotorcraft, engines for high speed, high efficiency aircraft, flywheel energy storage systems, reinforced concrete, robotic actuators, artificial muscles, and autonomously tailored structures.

Dr. Bakis serves as the Director of Penn State’s Composites Manufacturing Technology Center, which supports faculty and their students during the academic year, and contains a comprehensive collection of equipment for the manufacturing and testing of composites. His research has had a major impact on the development of light weight, high temperature composite components for structural applications and in the development of new composite manufacturing technologies that have been transferred to industry.

The title of distinguished professor is for outstanding faculty in recognition of their outstanding teaching, research, and service at Penn State and in their profession.

We hope you join ESM in congratulating Dr. Bakis on this prestigious award. He can be e-mailed at: ceb5@psu.edu

On January 14-17, 2008, Professor Melik Demirel gave an invited talk at the ICAM Annual Conference at the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The talk was entitled “Scaling Concepts in Structured Polymer Growth.” Prof. Demirel is a former fellow of Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter (ICAM) where his research is funded partially through ICAM-I2CAM.

Additionally, Prof. Demirel is going to co-organize an international workshop supported by I2CAM. The aim of the workshop is to study the fundamental principles of biological macromolecules (e.g. proteins, dna) and synthetic polymers (e.g. brushes, fibers) that have emergent properties from their structure rather than exclusively from their composition. This I2CAM meeting will be held in Turkey with Sabanci University as a partner.

Funding is available for junior scientist, postdocs and graduate students. Please contact Prof. Demirel for further information

Dinesh Agrawal, professor of engineering science and mechanics, materials science and engineering, and director of Microwave Processing and Engineering Center, gave an invited talk at the 16th International Conference on Processing and Fabrication of Advanced Materials (PFAM-16) held at National University of Singapore, on "Microwave Materials Processing: A Global Perspective." He also gave two invited talks at the First Microwave Open Symposium organized by National Institute for Fusion Science, Japan, and held in Tokyo, on the "Microwave Processing Processing of Semiconductors in E and H fields" and "Microwave Assisted Fabrication of Metal-Ceramic Composites."

Source: Penn State Newswire

Professor Akhlesh Lakhtakia, The Charles G. Binder (Endowed) Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics, will be featured during the 2008 Distinguished Lecturer Series on Friday, January 11, 2008 beginning at 11:00 am at the Engineering and Computer Science Complex, University of Texas, Dallas campus.

Dr. Lakhtakia will be presenting a talk on sculptured thin films. For additional information about the presentation, feel free to visit this website.

On December 24, 2007, Prof. Melik Demirel, Pearce Assistant Professor, spoke about Structured Polymer Brushes at Sabanci University in Istanbul Turkey during a Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences seminar.

The presentation included information concerning the structured polymer films which are conformal to any surface and suitable for industrial applications. The method is a bottom-up process based on oblique angle deposition. This approach allows Prof. Demirel’s group to tune the chemical properties of the resulting films, such as hydrophobicity, porosity, electrochemistry, chemical reactivity, surface energy and crystallinity.

To read additional information about this presentation, please visit this website.