What's New at ESM?

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.

During the summer 2008, Dr. Clifford Lissenden, associate professor in engineering science and mechanics, hosted the Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) Short Course on the University Park Campus. Over 20 professionals attended the meeting which highlighted speakers, experiments, and discussions related to SHM methods and systems. To learn more on the Ben Franklin Center of Excellence in Structural Health Monitoring, please visit their website.

Professor Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Charles G. Binder Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, attended a Lunch with the Experts event at the Optics + Photonics meeting in August 2008. During the event, one of Akhlesh’s students, Michael Motyka was presented with a certificate from Newport Spectra-Physics Research Excellence Grant. To read more about Michael’s award, please visit their website.

Dr. Corina Drapaca will teach a three-credit undergraduate course on the theoretical and computational aspects of the level set method and applications in imaging processing and mechanics spring semester 2009.

The course is offered as E SC 497A and will be taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:45 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. To register for the course, use schedule code number 241468.

For additional information contact Dr. Drapaca at:
Office phone: (814) 867-2313
Office address: 307D EES BL
E-mail: csd12@psu.edu
Homepage: http://www.esm.psu.edu/drapaca

Professor Emeritus Andrew Pytel has announcedl his fall commonwealth campus visit schedule. During the visits, Dr. Pytel will meet with groups of students interested in pursuing engineering science as their engineering major of choice. If you are interested in participating in a meeting at your campus, please contact Stacy Smith at sls60@psu.edu.

Dr. Sulin Zhang is teaching a three-credit graduate-level course on Multiscale Modeling of Materials spring semester 2009. The course will discuss computational methods that couple different length and time scales ranging from nano to micro.

The course is offered as E MCH 597A and will be taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4:15 - 5:30 pm. To register for the course, use schedule code number 232048.

For additional information, contact Dr. Zhang at:

Office phone: (814) 865-7640
Office address: 411D EES BL
E-mail: suz10@psu.edu
Homepage: http://www.esm.psu.edu/zhang

In July 2008, the Powder Metal Industry held its 44th year of offering the Basic Powder Metallurgy Short Course in State College. Course participants came from many industry segments including parts fabricators, jewelry manufacturers, medical parts end users, friction component manufacturers, abrasive component fabricators and oil drilling fabricators. Penn State's Center for Innovative Sintered Products (CISP) hosted course participants in a tour of the Center's facilities that included a presentation of research activities.

Dr. Bernhard R. Tittmann is teaching EMch 597A - "Physical Principles in Biomedical Ultrasonics" fall semester 2008. This graduate level course addresses the physical principles of advanced ultrasonic imaging and quantitative data acquisition techniques in the field of biology and medicine.

For more information contact Dr. Tittmann at 5-7827 or by e-mail at brt4@psu.edu.