What's New at ESM?

Dr. Robert McGrath, BS E SC ’72, MA E SC ’75, PhD from the University of Michigan, has decided to depart from Ohio State University and join the Battelle Memorial Institute as a member of their Global Laboratory operations leadership team. In his new role, he will assist with the management of the U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories and associated energy R&D programs.

At Ohio State University, Dr. McGrath served as Senior Vice President for Research at where he was responsible for the University’s strategic research planning and for operation of the University’s half-billion dollar research program. He also holds appointments as Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, as well as the Department of Physics.

ESM congratulates Dr. Robert McGrath for his accomplishments and wishes him well in his new endeavors.

Dr. Lawrence Friedman, Assistant Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, attends the Material Science and Technology (MS&T) conference 2008 from October 5 - 7, 2008 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. During the conference, Lawrence will be serving as the Nanomechanics Committee Vice Chair and hearing student paper presentations. To learn more about the conference, please visit this website.

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.

Dr. Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Charles Godfrey Binder Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, is to present a keynote-invited lecture at the annual Symposium of the American Vacuum Society on October 22 - 23 in Boston, Massachusetts. To learn more about the conference, please visit their website.

Dr. S. Ashok, Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, attended the 40th International conference on Solid State Devices and Materials in Toukuba, Japan on September 23-26, 2008. While in Japan, Dr. Ashok visited the University of Tokyo and Shiboura Institution of Technology to present a seminar. To learn more about the conference, please visit their website.

Dr. Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Charles Godfrey Binder Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, will present a poster at the meeting of Center for Optical Technologies on October 13, 2008 in Bethlehem, PA. The Center for Optical Technologies is a multi-institutional initiative based at Lehigh University with a charter to advance research and applications of optical and optoelectronic technologies. Currently the three primary research focus areas are Optoelectronics, All-Optical Functionalities, and Biophotonics. To learn more about the meeting, please visit their website.

Daniel Ahmed, Graduate student in Engineering Science and Mechanics, with advisory, Dr. Tony Huang, James Henderson Assistant Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanic, will be presenting a research paper on “Ultrafast Mixing” at the 2008 MicroTAS conference in San Diego, California on October 12 - 16, 2008. To learn more about the conference, please visit their website.

Dr. Lawrence Friedman, Assistant Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, will be attending the Society of Engineering Science (SES) 2008 meeting in Urbana, Illinois on October 12 - 15, 2008. While at the conference, Lawrence will present a paper on “Practical Finite Continuum Modeling with Applications to Film Evolution.” To learn more about the conference, please visit their website.

Professor Bernhard Tittmann, Schell Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, presented a paper on “Shear Wave Imaging of Tissue,” and chaired a session on acoustic microscopy at the International Conference on Medical Transducers on September 21 - 29 in Santa Barbara, California. To learn more about the conference, please visit this website.