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3:35-4:25 pm

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350 Human Health and Development Building
3:35-4:25 pm

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3:35-4:25 p.m.
60 Willard Building

The number of deaths attributed to drug use has increased dramatically in the US over the past decade, with over 109,000 overdose deaths in 2023. On average, over 10% of Americans struggle with some form of substance use disorder during their lifetime. To help mitigate the significant social and economic burden of substance use and addiction, an integrated set of interventions and policies is required. In this seminar, Paul will present systems models to support two interventions for improving harm reduction at the community level that are currently being piloted in Pennsylvania, namely drone delivery of naloxone and smart vending machines. He will then discuss “fair” allocation strategies for helping communities (namely, single county authorities) use funds provided by the $26B opioid settlement through an effort called Elevate PA.

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3:35-4:25 p.m.
60 Willard Building

Existing research on preventive measures largely focuses on strengthening the resilience of building systems towards singular events. This perpetuates silo thinking, which is disadvantageous in both public health and natural disaster resilience strategies in disaster risk reduction efforts. Many preventative measures have not been translated into immediate action because they are considered too costly, with uncertain or distant rewards. This perception has resulted in significantly more funds being spent on recovery and repair than on risk reduction and increasing resilience. It is worth noting that figures informing this thinking are based on incomplete quantification of the human and financial costs of disasters. They do not consider the “uncounted” harms that may not be evident during the short term. For example, mold in a water-damaged home that takes time to grow can trigger or exacerbate respiratory disease months after the disaster, and exposure to extreme heat can lead not only to heatstroke, cardiovascular issues, or kidney disease—conditions for which it’s harder to pinpoint the cause. While the jury is still out on the total “count” of these longer-term health effects of disasters, recent public health emergencies have underscored the urgent need to anticipate and live with interconnected, compounding, and consecutive risks. This requires evidence and guidelines for stakeholders from multiple sectors on operational measures informed by an enhanced understanding of the complex risk landscape, community characteristics, and emerging technologies.

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3:35-4:25 p.m.
60 Willard Building

The talk will examine the benefits and difficulties of biomanufacturing, along with our engineering insights into the challenges faced during scaling. While the U.S. remains a global leader in fundamental scientific discovery, its "innovation chain" is severely flawed, consistently failing to turn Deep Tech breakthroughs—from advanced materials to bio-fabrication—into large-scale domestic manufacturing. The main systemic issue is the lack of patient, risk-tolerant capital and suitable infrastructure to bridge the dangerous "valley of death" between a lab prototype and industrial-scale production. Through a case study, we demonstrate how the high costs and logistical complexities of the scale-up phase (TRLs 4-7) lead to technologies being commercialized and manufactured overseas. We conclude that without a major system overhaul—potentially building on existing Department of Defense frameworks—to directly connect innovation with domestic production, the U.S. risks losing future economic, technological, and national security advantages.

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3:35-4:25 p.m.
60 Willard Building

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Bio: Dr. Margaret L. Byron is currently the Martin W. Trethewey Early Career Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Penn State University, and is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, the Beckman Young Investigator Award, and the American Chemical Society Doctoral New Investigator Award. She earned her B.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University in 2010 and her MS/PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California Berkeley in 2012/2015. She works at the interface of biology, physics, and engineering, with interests including the fluid dynamics of animal locomotion and the transport of irregularly shaped inertial particles in turbulent flows (including sediment, aggregates, and microplastics)

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3:35-4:25 p.m.
60 Willard Building

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Dr. Jose Ventura is a Distinguished Professor of Industrial Engineering at Penn State. He holds a BS degree in Industrial Engineering from Polytechnic Univ. of Catalonia (Spain), and MEng and PhD degrees in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from Univ. of Florida. His research interest focuses on supply chain management, with a varying emphasis that includes supplier selection, auctions and price negotiation strategies for procurement, inventory coordination, and transportation. He is also interested in traffic network equilibrium, energy transport logistics, and energy policy. Ventura has published over 130 archival journal papers. His research has garnered funding from federal and state agencies, such as NSF, DARPA-TRP, the Pentagon, and PA Turnpike Commission, and industry, such as GE and McDonnell Douglas. His research has been recognized by numerous awards, including the 2017 IISE David F. Baker Distinguished Research Award, the 1990 NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, and the 1988 IISE Doctoral Dissertation Award.

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3:35-4:25 p.m.
60 Willard Building

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B. Shanker received his B'Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India in 1989, M.S. and Ph.D in 1992 and 1993, respectively, from The Pennsylvania State University. Currently, he is an Elizabeth and John Tinkham Professor and Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The Ohio State University from 2022. Between 2017-2022, he was a University Distinguished Professor (an honor accorded to about 2% of tenure system MSU faculty members) in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Michigan State University and the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Earlier, he was a faculty member at Iowa State University and a visiting assistant professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, all in ECE. At Michigan State University, he served as Associate Chair of the Department of Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering, a new department at MSU and was a key player in building this Department from 7 to 30+ faculty members in three years. He also served as Associate Chair for Graduate Studies in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 2012-2015, and the Associate Chair for Research in ECE from 2019-2022. He has authored/co-authored around 450 journal and conference papers. He was an Associate Editor for IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters (AWPL), IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, and Topical Editor for Journal of Optical Society of America: A. He is a full member of the USNC-URSI Commission B. He is Fellow of IEEE (class 2010), elected for his contributions to time and frequency domain computational electromagnetics. He has also been awarded the Withrow Distinguished Junior scholar (in 2003), Withrow Distinguished Senior scholar (in 2010), the Withrow teaching award (in 2007), and the Beal Outstanding Faculty award (2014).

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3:35-4:25 p.m.
60 Willard Building

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Dr Abdel Razik Sebak is a Tier I Concordia University Research Chair. Before joining Concordia University, he was a professor at the University of Manitoba. He was also with Cairo University and worked with the Canadian Marconi Company on the design of microstrip phased array antennas. Dr Sebak’s recent research activities cover two streams: Antenna Engineering, and Analytical and Computational Electromagnetics. Applied and sponsored projects include high gain mm-wave antennas, advanced composite materials for aerospace shielding and antenna applications, microwave sensing and imaging, ultra-wideband antennas, and microwave beamforming. Dr. Sebak’s original research contributions and technical leadership have been extensive and resulted in over 650 publications in prestigious refereed journals and international conference proceedings (h-index 52). He is among the world top 2% scientists Scopus Citation according to Science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators. Dr Sebak was inducted as a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2009. He is also a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada. Dr. Sebak is a member of Concordia University Provost's Circle of Distinction for his career achievements. For his joint efforts in establishing one of the most advanced electromagnetic computational and antennas labs at the University of Manitoba, Dr. Sebak received the Rh Award for Outstanding Contributions to Scholarship and Research. Dr. Sebak received the 1992 and 2000 University of Manitoba Merit Award for outstanding Teaching and Research. In 1996 Dr. Sebak received the Faculty of Engineering Superior Academic Performance. Dr Sebak has also received the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Best Chapter Award. Dr Sebak served as a Section Chair, NSERC Discovery Grant Evaluation Group, Electrical and Computer Engineering Group. He is the General Chair of the IEEE ITC-EGYPT2025, the IEEE-ANTEM2016 Symposium and Co-Chair of the IEEE ICUWB2015. He has served as Chair for the IEEE APS Ad-Hoc Award Committee (2022-2024). Dr. Sebak has also served as Chair for the IEEE Canada Awards and Recognition Committee (2002-2004), IEEE Canada Conference Committee (2000-2002) and as the Technical Program Chair for the 2002 IEEE CCECE Conference and the 2006 URSI-ANTEM Symposium. He has also served as a member (2002-2004) of the IEEE RAB Awards and Recognition Committee. Dr. Sebak has served as Associate Editor, Journal of Applied Computational Electromagnetic Society, Associate Editor, International Journal of Antennas and Propagation. Associate Editor, J. Engineering Research. He is a member of the Canadian National Committee of International Union of Radio Science (URSI) Commission B.

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3:35-4:25 p.m.
60 Willard Building

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Edwin Chan is the Project Leader of the Fundamentals of Polymer Mechanics Project in the NIST Materials Science and Engineering Division. He leads a research team that studies the elastodynamics of impact-mitigating materials and the interfacial mechanics of polymer interfaces.

 

Edwin earned a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in 2000, an M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2003, and a Ph.D. in Polymer Science and Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2007. His Ph.D. research was on the adhesion and mechanics of structured soft elastomers. Before joining the technical sta?, Edwin was a National Research Council Postdoctoral fellow in the Polymers Division at NIST (2008-2011).

Edwin is the recipient of the 2024 NIST Bronze Medal Award, the 2022 Arthur S. Flemming Award, the 2022 US National Academy of Science Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow, and the 2019 American Chemical Society Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering Division Cooperative Research Award. He was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2016. He was selected to participate in the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) organized German American Frontiers of Engineering in Potsdam, Germany, in 2015. He is also a recipient of the 2013 Adhesion Society Young Scientist Award. He has over 60 publications, three book chapters, and seven patents.

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3:35-4:25 p.m.
60 Willard Building

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Over 30 years of experience delivering results using statistical process improvement and organizational health methods. Clients include manufacturing, higher education, and nonprofits.

PhD, Industrial Engineering, Penn State1988

MS, Industrial Engineering, Penn State, 1986

BS, Industrial Engineering, Penn State, 1982

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3:35-4:25 p.m.
60 Willard Building

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Yue Fan is currently an Associate Professor at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He received his Ph.D. degree from MIT in 2013, and then worked at Oak Ridge National Lab as a Eugene P. Wigner Fellow from 2013 to 2016. His primary research interest is to provide a substantive knowledge on mechanics and microstructural evolution in complex systems via predictive modeling, and thus facilitate the development of new science-based high performance materials with novel functions and unprecedented strength, durability, and resistance to traditional degradation and failure. Some honors and recognitions he has received include “TMS-JIMM International Scholar”, “TMS MPMD Young Leaders Professional Development Award”, “NSF Career Award”, “Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award” (by ORAU), and “Haythornthwaite Young Investigator Award” (by ASME-Applied Mechanics Division).

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3:35-4:25 p.m.
60 Willard Building

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Dr. Atilla Ozgur Cakmak is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Grand Valley State University (GVSU), Michigan. He joined GVSU in 2021, and his primary research interests lie in the areas of metasurfaces and antennas. Dr. Cakmak has authored or co-authored more than 25 peer-reviewed publications and actively contributes to the scholarly community as an associate editor, topical editor, and reviewer in his field.

Dr. Cakmak earned his Ph.D. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Bilkent University, Turkey, in 2012. In 2013, he joined The Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Nanotechnology Education and Utilization (CNEU) as a postdoctoral researcher, focusing on solar cell technologies. He later served as an Assistant Teaching Professor at Penn State, beginning in 2018, where he taught courses in nanolithography and nanophotonics within the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics. As a mentor and educator, Dr. Cakmak is deeply committed to undergraduate and master’s student supervision, fostering hands-on research experiences and professional development through his teaching and research activities.

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