Engineering Science and Mechanics is honored to host Dr. Eric Cummings as a 2009 Outstanding Engineering Alumnus (OEA). Cummings (B.S. E SC 1989) is the founder and president of Cool Earth Solar, a company dedicated to making solar farming economically competitive. Cummings also founded LabSmith, Inc., a company that sells innovative laboratory products. Cummings has patents in the areas of solar-concentrator architectures and, spread-spectrum barcodes which can indicate minute amounts of tamper to micro-fabricated dielectrophoretic sorters of cells, bacterial, and viruses. He has refereed publications in microfluidics including two foundational scientific discoveries: the theory of ideal electrokinesis and the methodology of insulator-based dielectrophoresis.

Dr. Cummings will be recognized with other OEA awardees during a College wide event scheduled April 26 -27, 2009.