What's New at ESM?

Dr. Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Charles Godfrey Binder Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, is scheduled to deliver a plenary talk entitled “Elastodynamics of Inorganic and Polymeric Sculptured Thin Films,” on Wednesday June 25 at the 7th Iberian Vacuum Meeting and the 5th European Topical Conference on Hard Coatings in Caparica Portugal. For more information, please visit this website.

Dr. Patrick Lenahan, University Distinguished Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, will be chairing a meeting at the Electronic Materials Conference in Los Angeles, California from June 24 - 29. To learn more about this conference, please visit this website.

Three engineering science and mechanics faculty are recepients of the 2008 Grace Woodward Grants for Collaborative Research in Engineering Science and Medicine.

Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Charles Godfrey Binder Professor and Timothy M. Ritty, assistant professor of orthopaedics at the Milton S. Hershey College of Medicine, have received $25,000 in funding to support their application entitled Sculpted Thin Films Designed to Improve Medical Device Tissue Integration.

Michael Lanagan, associate professor, Elena Semouchkina, associate professor, Andrew Webb, professor of bioengineering, and Keith Cheng, professor of pathology, biochemistry, and pharmacology, at the Milton S. Hershey College of Medicine, have received a $25,000 grant to support their application entitled Permittivity Ceramic Inserts for Submillimeter NMR Imaging of Zebrafish

Professor Melik Demirel’s, Pearce Assistant Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, recent work on simulation of lipid-bilayer membranes appeared on the front cover of PCCP journal. This work is completed in collaboration with doctoral student Rama Gullapalli and Professor Peter Butler, Associate Professor from the BioEngneering department at Penn State.

Dr. Steve Schiff, Brush Chair Professor of Engineering in the departments of Neurosurgery, ESM, and Physics, has been published in MIT Technology review, June 2008 titled, New approaches to modeling the brain could improve electrical-stimulation therapies. The article highlights Steve’s work as an engineer and neurosurgeon, utilizing an engineering technique, known as control theory, to model the networks of neurons that produce the abnormal electrical activity that is characteristic of both seizures and movement disorders such as Parkinson's. To read more, please visit this website.

Professor Melik Demirel, Pearce Assistant Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, presented two talks. The first talk was at the Bio Sensors & Diagnostics session of NSTI Nanotech 2008 Boston meeting, on June 2, 2008. His talk is entitiled: “A SERS substrate for detection of E.Coli on Nanostructured Poly(p-xylylene).” To read more details are available at the NSTI website.

His second talk was at the Physics Department of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, on June 3, 2008. His talk is entitled “Oblique Angle Polymerization of Nanofibers and Nanotemplates”. More information about the physics department website.

Dr. Osama O. Awadelkarim, Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics, spoke to America.gov in an interview just prior to traveling to Arusha, Tanzania, to attend the first science, technology and innovation workshop of American and African scientists. The workshop seeks to expand a partnership to explore the benefits of basic science research. Further Osama spoke about Africans helping Africa in their future developments in science and technologies. To learn more about Osama’s interview, please visit this website.

Dr. Charles Bakis, Distinguished Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, presented an invited presentation on "Durability of Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer Reinforcement Bars in Concrete" to the NSF International Workshop on the use of Fiber Reinforced Polymers for Sustainable Structures in Cairo, Egypt, May 22, 2008.

Chuck also presented a contributed paper on "Experimental Evaluation of Mechanical and Thermal Properties of Carbon and Aramid FRP Tendons" at the 5th Middle East Symposium on Structural Composites for Infrastructure Applications--Innovations and Applications, in Hurghada, Egypt, on May 23-25, 2008.

Dr. Charles Bakis, Distinguished Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, presented two invited seminars to the Department of Structural Engineering at the University of Naples "Federico II" in Italy, on May 16 and 19, 2008. The seminars are titled "Fiber Reinforced Polymers in Infrastructure: Mechanical Testing and Durability Issues," and "Fiber Reinforced Polymers in Aerostructures: Review of Recent Research."

Dr. Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Charles Godfrey Binder Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, delivered an invited lecture entitled "Sculptured-thin-film Plasmonic-Polaritonics" at MIEL 2008, the 26th International Conference on Microelectronics in Nis, Serbia.

The IEEE-sponsored event was held May 11 to 14. Dr. Lakhtakia's co-authors are Dr. John A. Polo, Jr. (Department of Physics, Edinboro University of Pennsylvania) and ESM graduate student Michael A. Motyka. Dr. Lakhtakia also co-chaired a plenary session. For more information on MIEL 28, please visit this website.