Niranjan Malvadkar, (doctoral candidate) will present two papers at the 215th Electrochemical Society Meeting, May 24-27, 2009, in San Francisco, CA. The papers are titled "A Template Based Method to Prepare Inexpensive Metal Catalyst for Hydrogen Release Application" and "Conformal Growth of Nanostructured Titania on Spatially Organized Poly (p-xylylene) Nanocolums". Mr. Malvadkar's research is supervised by Dr. Melik Demirel and is supprted by a Young Investigator Program Award from the Office of Naval Research.

The spring 2009 award winners were announced at last weeks ESM graduation and tea ceremony which was enjoyed by the graduating seniors and their families.

The Francis H. Fenlon Award was given to Michael Anderson in recognition of his outstanding Engineering Science senior thesis in honor of the late Dr. Fenlon, a dedicated teacher and exceptional researcher in the ESM department. Michael also received the honor of student marshal for the E SC program’s commencement ceremony. This honor is given to a student in the graduating class who represent the best of the program graduates.

Stephen Koytek and Matt Verlinich received the Kearns/McNitt Award. The award was given to these students for their outstanding academic achievement.

Dr. Paul A. Lester Award was accepted by Ashkar A. Kunju for his doctoral thesis work in the area of microelectronics.

In honor of his graduate teaching assistant techniques, the students and faculty felt it was best suited to award the J. Conway Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award to David Engels.

The P.B. Breneman Best Portfolio Award presented to Lydia Krefta.

The P.B. Breneman Best Design in Research granted to Zackary Stratton.

Congratulations to all our award recipients and graduates!

Kathryn Barber engineering science junior, has won a 2009 Goldwater Scholarship. Ms. Barber is one of 278 students selected from over 1,097 nominated nationwide.

Ms. Barber is pursuing an Honors degree in Engineering Science with minors in Bioengineering and German. During her first year of studies, she enrolled in the Women in Science and Engineering Research (WISER) Program and worked with Dr. Mary Frecker (Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering) in consultation with Dr. Abraham Matthew, gastroenterologist, Hershey Medical Center, to prototype "endoscopic forceps" for "incision-less" surgery. Subsequently, Ms Barber was one of four Penn State students selected to present at the Undergraduate Research at the State Capitol in Harrisburg, fall 2008 (show above with the Honorable Art Hershey). Ms. Barber's future plans include a doctoral degree in biomedical engineering.

The purpose of the Goldwater Foundation is to provide a continuing source of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians, and engineers by awarding scholarships to college students who intend to pursue careers in these fields.The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program was established by Congress in 1986 to honor Senator Barry M. Goldwater, who served his country for 56 years as a soldier and statesman, including 30 years of service in the U.S. Senate.

Jason Ryan (M.S., E SC) presented a paper titled "Atomic Scale Defects and Their Impact on NBTL, PBTL and Other Reliability Mechanisms at the Digitial Complimentary metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) Technologies and Memory Technology Review Conference, held in Berkely, CA, May 18 - 22, 2009. The meeting was sponsored by the Semiconductor Research Corporation.

Lei Fang’s, recent doctoral graduate, research to appear in the May issue of the Journal of Materials Research in an article titled, "Augmented instrumented indentation using nonlinear electrical contact current-voltage curves." This research was performed with his Penn State colleagues, Christopher L. Muhlstein, associate professor in Materials Science, Amber L. Romasco, graduate student in Materials Science, James G. Collins, graduate student in Materials Science and Lawrence H. Friedman, assistant professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, and it is a detailed study of using electrical contact behavior to aid in measuring the mechanical properties through instrumented indentation.

Lei Fang recently defended his Ph.D. dissertation and currently works at Ametek, Inc. in Pittsburgh, PA.