On December 5th, Brennan DeCesar and James Moses, graduate students in Engineering Science and Mechanics participated in the 7th Annual Bellefonte YMCA Polar Bear Plunge at Bald Eagle State Park. This event raises funds for the Strong Kid’s Campaign. The Strong Kid’s Campaign enables the YMCA to turn no one away for their inability to pay for membership. This year, the Bellefonte and State College YMCA are expected to give out a combined $250,000 in financial assistance to families in need. Their financial assistance program called “Open Doors” is one aspect of the Strong Kids Campaign and it provides assistance for various programs and memberships to individuals of all ages. The funds raised from the Polar Plunge are directly used for the Open Doors program.

James has been a member of the YMCA for the past few years only because of this program and wanted to help out to give back and the Plunge was one way to do that. Each participant was required to raise $50 in sponsorship money. Brennan and James were able to raise $107.00 for the event.

Previous years' numbers were blown out of the water with 137 plungers raising more than $30,000. The previous year had only 74 brave souls taking the plunge.

Drew Pulsifer, graduate student in Engineering Science and Mechanics, will present a paper entitled “Modification of conformal evaporated film by rotation technique to improve replica uniformity on nonplanar biotemplates,” at the SPIE Photonics West conference. The meeting is held on January 25 – 28 in San Francisco, California. Drew is being advised by Dr. Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Charles Godfrey Binder Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics. To learn more about the conference, please visit their website.