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January 16, 2009

Around Campus | People | Publications & Presentations | Recent Grants

Around Campus

University Lecture to be Held Jan. 26

WPI's University Lecture will be held from 5 to 6 p.m. Monday, Jan. 26, in Alden Memorial. This year's lecture will feature Franklin M. Orr Jr., Keleen and Carlton Beal professor in Stanford University's Department of Energy Resources Engineering and director of the school's Global Climate and Energy Project.

Professor Orr will address global climate change and how alternative energy sources can reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases - even as the population and developing-world economies grow.

Orr and his Stanford students work on mathematical models used to calculate how fluids flow in the rocks of the Earth's crust. He and his colleagues at the Global Climate and Energy Project are researching methods to limit the emission of greenhouse gases associated with energy use. Orr is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

The University Lecture Series, which is open to the public and sponsored by the Office of the President, provides a forum for speakers of national and international importance to enhance scholarly and scientific learning and stimulate intellectual conversation in the community.

"Recyclemania" Launches Jan. 18

Get ready to recycle! WPI students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to participate in "Recyclemania," an international (and friendly!) recycling competition to be held Jan. 18 to March 28, and organized by the College and University Recycling Council.

"Recyclemania" is a benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste-reduction activities to their campus communities.

Over the course of this 10-week recycling competition, participating schools measure and report the amount of recycled materials - paper, cardboard, comingled glass, plastic, and aluminum - their campus produces in residence halls, academic buildings, dining halls, athletic facilities, and administrative offices. The data is ranked in comparison to the data submitted by the other 400-plus North American colleges and universities that are participating in this year's "Recyclemania."

WPI's participation, specifically in the competition's waste-cutting portion, aims to cultivate a life-long recycling habit among campus community members. The event is part of the President's Task Force on Sustainability mission. Liz Tomaszewski, facilities systems manager; Fred DiMauro, assistant vice president for facilities; and Janet Richardson, vice president for student affairs and campus life, helped to bring the competition to WPI.

For more information, email student Scott Guzman at sguzman@wpi.edu.

President's IQP Awards Event Approaches

In 2008, 34 student teams submitted entries for the President's IQP Awards. Five projects have been selected as finalists, and another three have been chosen to receive "honorable mention." The finalists will offer their presentations at 1:30 p.m. Jan. 28 to President Berkey and a panel of judges in the Campus Center Odeum.

The finalists, in no particular order, are

• "Design and Construction of a Communal Laundry Station in Monwabisi Park, Cape Town" - Lauren Alex, Jessy Cusack, Augustina Mills, Alejandro Sosa-Boyd; advisors: Scott Jiusto, Stephen Weininger
• "Four Tourists and Hong Kong's Harbourfront: A Survey of the Waterfront of Victoria Harbour" - Michael Hyde, Sean Seymour, Daniel Tennant, Minh Truong; advisors: Kevin Clements, Paul Davis
• "Managing Water and Sanitation in the Fish River Basin" - Nicholas Careau, Martha Gray, Charlie Mezak, Phyllis Wall; advisors: Creighton Peet, Ludwig Reinhold
• "Analysis of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Related to Food: A Study of Two Cafeterias in the Danish Municipality of Lyngby-Taarbǽk" - Kenneth
  Barnett, Derek Eggiman, Jesse Sawyer; advisor:
  Peter Christopher
• "Evaluating the Effectiveness of Hands-On-History at the Tower of London" - Steve Shin, Natasha Deschene, Daniel Morehouse, Max Kuhns;
  advisors: Peter Hansen, Stanley Selkow

The projects receiving "honorable mention," in no particular order, are

• "Raising Public Visibility: Communication Design for the Bangkok Refugee Center" - Alice Abou Nader, Eric Evan-Browning, Kathryn Siering, Bartlett Shappee; advisors: Chrysanthe Demetry, Richard Vaz
• "Adopting Educational Programs for Students with Disabilities (Zoos Victoria)" - Sara Kosmaczewski, Justine Ziobron, Ben Gilde, Nicole Maglione; advisor: Holly Ault
• "The Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle: Proliferation and Impact on Society and the Environment" - Andrew Teixeira, Tanvir Madan, Hunain Kapadia, Ishrak Khair, Syed Naqvi; advisors: Khalid Saeed, Alexander Emanuel

People

Plummer Named Mass. Professor of Year

For the second year in a row, a WPI faculty member has been named Professor of the Year for Massachusetts by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). Jeanine Plummer, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the university's Environmental Engineering Program, has been recognized as one of the nation's most outstanding undergraduate instructors.

Plummer and the other national and state winners were recognized Nov. 20 at an awards luncheon at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel in Washington, D.C. She is the third WPI professor to receive this honor in the past six years.

In 2007, Plummer was named director of WPI's new undergraduate program in environmental engineering. WPI has honored Plummer with the Board of Trustees' Award for Academic Advising (in 2005) and the Board of Trustees' Award for Outstanding Teaching (in 2006). In 2004, Plummer received a WPI Teaching Technology Fellowship.

Heinricher Named Undergrad Studies Dean

Arthur Heinricher has been appointed dean of undergraduate studies. In this position, Heinricher is responsible for ensuring the quality and effectiveness of all aspects of the undergraduate experience at WPI. A 16-year veteran of the faculty, he comes to the job having most recently served as the university’s first associate dean for the first year experience.

As dean of undergraduate studies, Heinricher has overall responsibility for undergraduate education at WPI, providing leadership and working with the faculty to implement new undergraduate curricular and structural changes. Together with Janet Richardson, vice president for student affairs and campus life, he works to ensure an appropriate balance and synergy between academics and student life. He reports to the provost.

Healing the Heart

Glenn Gaudette, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, has signed on to co-edit a book entitled Regenerating the Heart: Stem Cells and the Cardiovascular System to be published by Humana Press, an imprint of Springer Science and Business Media.

The book will explore the current landscape of stem cell-based approaches for cardiac regeneration to improve mechanical function after heart attack or heart failure. The book will also cover research using stem cells to create a biological pacemaker for treating heart arrhythmias.

Gaudette will co-edit the book with Ira Cohen, director of the Institute for Molecular Cardiology at Stony Brook University in New York. Gaudette, who did his doctoral studies at Stony Brook, has collaborated with Cohen on cardiac regeneration research for several years. The book is scheduled for publication early in 2010.

New Faculty Members

WPI welcomed six new tenure-track faculty members last fall; another joined the university this month. An additional 11 educators have joined the university as visiting professors, adjunct faculty members, a professor of practice, and members of the Military Science Department.

"The breadth of experience and talents, scholarly accomplishments, and active research programs our new faculty bring to WPI add immeasurably to our strengths in engineering, the sciences, and the liberal arts and management," Provost John Orr said.

The new tenure-track faculty members are John Delorey, instructor of music and director of choral programs; Tanja Dominko, associate professor of biology and biotechnology; Gregory Fischer, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and robotics engineering; Janice Gobert, associate
professor of social science and policy studies; George Kaminski, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry; Izabela Stroe, assistant professor of physics; Jennifer deWinter, joined WPI this month as assistant professor of writing and rhetoric.

The new non-tenure-track faculty members are Inmaculada Alvarez, adjunct assistant professor of Spanish; Lt. Col. Carl Cowen, head of the Military Science Department; Shibin Dai, visiting assistant professor of mathematical sciences; Maj. Kyle Head, assistant professor of military science; Lt. Col. Thomas Maeder, assistant professor of military science; Taskin Padir, visiting assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering; Milosh Puchovsky, professor of practice and director of fire protection engineering corporate professional education; Ingrid Shockey, adjunct assistant professor of interdisciplinary and global studies; Sharon Ann Wulf, visiting assistant professor of management; Alisha Youngblood, visiting assistant professor of management; and Junhua Wu, visiting assistant professor of mathematical sciences.

Publications & Presentations

Biomedical Engineering

• Bright, L., L. Sturgis, J. Thibideau, R. Dunn, K. Billiar, "Design of a New Rotational Interface Between Microvascular Clips and Their Applying Forceps,"
  presented at the 34th Northeast Bioengineering Conference, Providence, R.I., April 2008.
• Ebner, T., L. Bitner, H. Deitelbaum, J. Srbinoska, B. S. Balestrini, M. Rolle, and K. Billiar, "Design of Biaxial Device for Measuring Cell Contractile Forces," presented at the 34th Northeast Bioengineering Conference, Providence, R.I., April 2008.
• Kan, V., I. Malek, S. McDermott, L. Worobey, M. Rolle, and K. Billiar, K. "Design of Device to Measure the Stiffness of Suspended Collagen Gels," presented at the 34th Northeast Bioengineering Conference, Providence, R.I., April 2008.
• Throm, A. M., J. John, K. B. Billiar, "Effects of Environment Stiffness on VIC Phenotype," Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Fall Meeting, St. Louis, Mo., Oct. 1-4, 2008.

Computer Science

• Heineman, G., G. Pollice, and S. Selkow, Algorithms in a Nutshell," O'Reilly Media, 2008.

Fire Protection Engineering

• Dembsey, N., "Fire Characteristics of Materials: Comments Relevant to Simulation of Fire Growth Scenarios," invited lecture before The RJA Group 2008 Leadership Conference in Chicago, Ill., Sept. 11, 2008.

Humanities and Arts

• Brisson, U., "Mongolian Nomadism - A Projection of a Western Utopia?" 32nd Annual Convention of the German Studies Association, St. Paul, Minn.,
  Oct. 2-5, 2008.
• Brisson, U., "Post-Wall Border Crossings: Ex-GDR Perspectives on the World," organized and chaired panel at Women in German Conference, Snowbird, Utah, Oct. 23-26, 2008.
• Brisson, U., translation of Blanche Willis Howard's 1877. Ein Jahr unterwegs: Eine Amerikanerin bereist die Alte Welt, 1877, Schweinfurt, Wiesenburg, 2008.

Recent Grants

Academic Affairs

• Cyr, Martha, "The Massachusetts Technician Education Collaborative (Mass-Tec)," from Quinsigamond Community College, $9,000

Biology & Biotechnology

• DiIorio, Alex, "Fermentation and Purification of Kunitz Domain Proteins," from Dyax Corp., $12,289

Chemical Engineering

• Camesano, Terri, "Polymer Multilayers for Non-Mechanical Closures Application," from the Natick Soldier Center, $128,000

Electrical & Computer Engineering

• Duckworth, James, with David Cyganski as co-principal investigator, "Testing and Evaluation of First Responder Indoor Location Technology," from the U.S. Army, $433,879
• Ludwig, Reinhold with John Sullivan as co-principal investigator, "MR Microwave Absorption and Tomography Imaging," from Dartmouth College, $163,396
• Pahlavan, Kaveh, "Performance Evaluation of Cellular Localization Techniques" / Skyhook Wireless, Inc. / $6,701
• Sunar, Berk, "Improving Snow3G and ECC with the Intel Westmere Instruction Set," from Intel Corp., $44,233

Management

• Strong, Diane, with Bengisu Tulu, Isa Bar-On, and Sharon Johnson as co-principal investigators, "AOC: Health Information Technology as an Agent of Change for Improving Health Care Delivery Process," from the National Science Foundation, $749,985

Mechanical Engineering

• Liang, Jianyu, "Integrated Studies on the Interfaces in Nanocomposites and Nanoimprinting," from University of Akron, $33,889
• Pryputniewicz, Ryszard, for "OELIM Support for the Development of Navigation-Grade Integrated Micro Gyroscope (NGIMG), from Boeing (DARPA), $100,003
• Sullivan, John, "Development of a Model to Predict Accumulated Radiation Fields to Assist in the Therapeutic Treatment within Lumpectomy Sites while Maintaining Substantially Reduced Dosages in Surrounding Normal Breast Tissue," from Advanced Radiation Therapy, $17,561
• Tryggvason, Gretar, "Applications of Hydrofoil with Leading Edge Protuberances," from California State University, $42,150
• Tryggvason, Gretar, "Direct Numerical Simulations of Nucleate Flow Boiling," from Sandia National Laboratory, $106,000

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Last modified: January 16, 2009 09:06:19