What's New at ESM?

Dr. Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Charles Godfrey Binder Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, was recently highlighted on Penn State Live with his work entitled “Sculptured materials allow multiple channel plasmonic sensors.”

Sensors, communications devices and imaging equipment that use a prism and a special form of light – a surface plasmon-polariton – may incorporate multiple channels of redundant applications if manufacturers use sculptured thin films. Surface plasmon resonance devices currently have a wide range of applications. They are commercially used as sensors for humidity, temperature, chemical concentrations and chemical composition. SPR devices can be used in a form of surface microscopy, as wave guides and tunable filters. Creating two or more channels in each device would multiply SPR utility in all areas of application.

To read more, please visit this website.
**Source: Penn State Live

Dr Cliff Lissenden, Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics presented research results at the NASA Aviation Safety conference. The meeting was held in Washington, DC on November 18. To learn more about the Safety conference, please visit their website.

Dr. Dinesh Agrawal, Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics, and Director of Microwave Processing and Engineering Center was inducted as a Fellow of American Ceramic Society at the Annual Meeting of Materials Science & Technology 09 held at Pittsburgh on October 26, 2009.

Dr. S. Ashok, Professor in Engineering Science and Mechancis, presented a paper at the American Vacuum Society meeting in San Francisco, California. The conference was held on November 9 – 13. To read more about the society, please visit their website.

Dr. Tony Huang, James Henderson Assistant Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, is attending the International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE) 2009 conference in Orlando, Florida on November 13 – 19. While at the conference he will serve as the organizing chair for the 2009 ASME Society-wide Micro/Nano Technology Forum. To learn more about the IMECE conference, please visit their website.

Dr. Melik Demirel, Associate Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, has been invited to present a lecture on nanostructured polymers at the 56th technical program, American Vacuum Society on November 10th, 2009 in San Jose, California.

To learn more about the conference, please visit their website.

Dr. Cliff Lissenden, Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, presented research at the American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT) Conference on October 20 – 21 in Columbus, Ohio. To learn more about the conference, please visit their website.

Dinesh Agrawal, Professor of Engineering Science and Director of the Materials Research Institute's Microwave Processing and Engineering Center, has been elected to the grade of Fellow of the American Ceramic Society (ACerS). Dr. Agrawal will be recognized at the ACerS Honors and Awards Banquet at the 111th Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh, PA, on Monday, October 26, 2009.

Congratulations on this accomplishment.

Prof. Melik Demirel presented an invited talk on soft nanomaterials at the 2009 Discovery to Commercialization Conference at Philedelpia October 15. The meeting has been organized by Ben Franklin Institute. To learn more about the conference, please visit their web site.

Charles Bakis, Distinguished Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics, will be presenting an invited lecture on Life Cycle Analysis Issues in the Use of Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites in Civil Infrastructure at the International Workshop on Life Cycle Assessment of Sustainable Infrastructure Materials, 21-22 Oct. 2009, Sapporo, Japan.