Dr. Tony Huang, Associate Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, will travel to Bejing, Shanghai, Xian, and Wahan China from May through June 2011. Tony will present three papers at the Transducers 2011 conference and visit eight universities across China to recruit students and establish collaborations. To learn more about the Transducers 2011 conference, please visit their web site.

ESM would like to congratulate the following students who accomplished the Dean's List for the spring 2011 semester.

Spring 2011 Dean's List
Rohit Ananth, Benjamin Anderson, Shayne Bement, Brett Corl, Abigail Dodson, Kevin Forgie, Robert Gavin, Joseph Giordano, Alan Githens, James Glickstein, Robert Gresh, Iain Grigsby, Justin Hammond, Matthew Jaffe, Arwen Kandt, Mike Kelly, Faye Kim, Yapwei Li, Bradley Meholic, Joseph Merola, Amy Miller, Luke Mitchell, Kathleen Mulvaney, Grant Myers, Anthony Naccarelli, Nathan Nalevanko, Stefan Omelchenko, Joshua Park, Christopher Pedley, Daniel Perlitz, Daniel Petersen, Aditya Pisupati, Sylvia Ranjeva, Ian Rineer, Thomas Roher, David Rydzewski, William Schuppert, Kelvin Shi, Anthony Signorino, Daniel Slotcavage, Stephen Smith, Timothy Stefanoski, Jonathan Steiner, Matthew Storey, Lee Thompson, Ryan Trella, Robert Vadella, Henry Wassinger, Samuel Werner, Xuerong Xiao, and Liam Young.

Spring 2011 Dean's List Graduates
Zakaria Al Balushi, Kathryn Barber, Ben Beers, Patrick Devlin, Brian Filko, Holly Heinrichs, Michael Hemmerle, Daniel Miller, David Robinson, and Joseph Smalley.

SPIE has awarded a $3000 scholarship to Muhammad Faryad and a $2000 scholarship to Drew Pulsifer. Both students are pursuing their PhD degrees in Engineering Science and Mechanics, under the supervision of Prof. Akhlesh Lakhtakia. Muhammad's research is focused on surface-wave propagation and solar energy harvesting. Drew is working on bioreplication techniques to copy surfaces such as insect eyes and fingerprints.

Dr. Osama Awadelkarim, Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, traveled to Albany, New York in early May 2011 to present at the International Nanotechnology Conference held at the College of Nanoscience and Engineering. To learn more about the conference, please visit this web site.

The ESM Department held its annual Graduation and Awards Ceremony on Friday, May 13th in the Earth and Engineering Sciences Building.

Photos and media from the event are available here.

Patrick Devlin won the Kerns/McNitt Award
Joseph S. T. Smalley won the Frank Fenlon Award
Chandrasekaran Venkatasubramanian won the Paul A. Lester Award
Navendu Patil and Arjun Roy won the Joseph Conway Award
Matthew Ketterman won the P.B. Breneman Best Portfolio and Kathryn Barber and Joseph Smalley received Honorable Mentions
Zakaria Al Balushi won the P.B. Breneman Best Design in Research

Congratulations to all for attaining these honors.

Dr. Barbara Shaw, Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, traveled to Arlington, Virginia on May 18 to attend a NSF Advisory Committee for Polar Program Meeting. To learn more about the meeting, please visit their web site.

Dr. Al Segall, Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, will attend, present and chair sessions at the annual Society of Tribologists and Engineers meeting. The paper Al will present is entitled "Evaluation of Sliding, Reciprocating, and Fretting Wear of Self-Lubricating Coating Created by High Velocity Particle Consolidation." The meeting will be held in Atlanta, GA on May 18. To learn more information about the conference, please visit their web site.

The ESM Department will host Engineering Science students and their families at a graduation celebration during the afternoon of May 13, 2011 in the lobby of the EES building. The program begins at 1:30 p.m. Refreshments will be served at the conclusion.

Visitors may park in the Red A lot located at the back of the Earth-Engineering Sciences Building (the lot between the Earth-Engineering Sciences Building and the Leonhard Building).

Directions to the Earth-Engineering Sciences Building

Photos from this event are now available in the Gallery.

Kamrun Nahar, research associate, Center for Neural Engineering, along with Mirna Urquidi-Macdonald, professor of engineering science and mechanics, used data mining to find the most relevant information about the corrosion-resistant properties of Alloy 22, an alloy candidate for nuclear-waste canisters. They reported their findings in the latest issue of Corrosion Science.

"Data is collected when a phenomenon is poorly understood and laboratory experiments are carried out," said Kamrun. "Large amounts of data exist everywhere. Every area of study has terabytes of information that could be used better by using data mining techniques to extract valuable information from data."

Alloy 22 is known for its corrosion-resistant properties and is most commonly used where resistance to rust and damage is crucial, such as in radioactive waste containment. Alloy 22 also is used in waste incinerators, pollution control, nuclear-fuel reprocessing and chemical manufacturing.

To read the full article, click here for more details.
*Source Penn State Live

Dr. Joe Cusumano, Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, and collaborators in Kinesiology and Hershey Medical Center has just won the Gait and Clinical Movement Analysis Society Best Paper Award. The paper was entitled “Arm swing symmetry and coordination are reduced in early Parkinson’s disease,” authored by Xuemei Huang, Joseph Mahoney, Mechelle Lewis, Guangwei Du, Stephen Piazza and Joe Cusumano. The award winning paper will be fast-tracked for publication in Gait & Posture.

Brian Kiraly, Graduate Student in Engineering Science and Mechanics, has been awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship for his research on Nanoparticle Hemptamber Based Biosensors. Brian is conducting his research with Dr. Tony Huang in the Biofunctionalized Nano-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (BioNEMS) Laboratory.

Dr. Joseph Rose, Paul Marrow Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from SPIE for Structural Health Monitoring and Smart Structures. Joe was awarded this honor at the SPIE Smart Structures and NDE conference in San Diego, California. ESM Congratulates Professor Rose!

Dr. Melik Demirel, Associate Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, is to give an invited talk at the American Vacuum society (AVS) meeting on May 3 in San Diego, California. To learn more about AVS, please visit their web site.