Dr. Cliff Lissenden, Associate Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics and Director of the Ben Franklin Center of Excellence in Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) announces the annual fall meeting on November 3-4, 2008.

Keynoting for the meeting, the Center welcomes John Johns from the Office of the Secretary of Defense. To read more about Mr. Johns, click the “read more” link at the end of this entry.

For additional information about the SHM fall meeting, visit their website.

Penn State will receive $5 million over four years from the National Science Foundation to establish a National Center for Nanotechnology Applications and Career Knowledge (NACK).

Penn State has been a national leader in nanotechnology education and workforce development since 1998. From 2001 to 2008, Penn State was home to the NSF Regional Center for Nanofabrication Manufacturing Education. The new NSF grant establishes the National Center for Nanotechnology Applications and Career Knowledge (NACK) as successor to the Regional Center.

According to Stephen Fonash, the Kunkle Chair Professor of Engineering Science, who will direct the new NACK Center, the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development was extremely farsighted when it created the Nanofabrication Manufacturing Technology (NMT) Partnership in 1998 to meet Pennsylvania industry needs for skilled micro- and nanofabrication workers.

"The NMT Partnership prepares students to work in any industry using micro- and nanotechnology," said Fonash. "In addition to Penn State, the NMT Partnership includes the Pennsylvania Commission for Community Colleges, the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, the Pennsylvania College of Technology, other post-secondary and secondary schools, private industry and others."

The nation's first associate degrees in nanofabrication were awarded in Pennsylvania through this partnership. The NMT Partnership also offers enormously popular summer Nanotech Academies for high school students, as well as professional development workshops for educators and industry personnel.

The goal of the NACK Center is to provide national coordination of micro- and nanofabrication workforce development programs and activities on behalf of NSF.

Source: Penn State Department of Public Information

Engineering Science and Mechanics has teamed up with the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (our fellow building occupants) to bring state-of-the-art research to the public through visually attractive posters in the lobbies and halls of the Earth-Engineering Sciences Building (EES).

The posters are representative of just some of the extant research activities being conducted by ESM teams of faculty and students.

Several posters are already in place while others will be installed over the next few weeks.

Congratulations to Jing Mu (ESMCH, August 2008; and Fei Yan ESMCH , May 2009) upon the arrival of infant daughter Sophie Yan. Sophie was born Wednesday, September 17th at 4:40 a.m. Jing tells us that Sophie is quickly growing beyond her birth statistics of 7 lbs., 11 oz; 20 inches long.

Please send your congratulations to Jing and Fei at jxm1006@psu.edu or fzy101@psu.edu.

Ghanium Ullah, Post-doctoral Scholar in Engineering Science and Mechanics, will attend and present research results at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Society of Neuroscience on November 15-19, 2008 in Washington, D.C. Ghanium’s research highlights include the lack of understanding of cellular interaction during epileptic seizures is a primary reason for the ineffectiveness of the treatment methods in one-third of the patients. The Neural Engineering group at ESM has developed a detailed model for the neuronal networks to investigate the cellular interaction during seizures. The model exposes several mechanisms playing an important role in seizures generation and propagation and points towards possible therapeutic treatments. To read more about the conference, please visit this website.

Sridhar Sunderam, Research Associate at the Center for Neural Engineering, in Engineering Science and Mechanics, will attend the 2008 Annual International Meeting of the Society of Neuroscience in Washington, D.C. on November 15 - 19, 2008. While at the conference Sridhar is delivering a presentation entitled: Seizure Modulation with Low Frequency Polarizing Stimulation.” The talk will be expanding on his ability to utilize weak electric fields to entrain neural activity during epileptic seizures in a chronic rodent model of temporal lobe epilepsy. To learn more about the conference, please visit their website.