At the recent ASEE Zone 1 Conference hosted at the US Military Academy at West Point, the paper, "Promoting Systems Thinking in Engineering and Pre-Engineering Students," by R. Jain, K.Sheppard, E. McGrath and B. Gallois, was awarded 1st Place in the conference's Best Paper Competition.  ASEE Zone 1 includes the three sections covering all of the north eastern portion of the USA & Canada.

For more information please contact:

Dr. Keith Sheppard
Associate Dean of Engineering, Schaefer School of Engineering and Science
Edwin A. Stevens Hall
Room 216
Phone: 201.216.5260
Fax: 201.216.8372

ksheppar@stevens.edu

On April 24th, 2008, at the Society of Pharmaceutical Engineering's (ISPE) NJ Regional Poster Competition both (post)graduate student Dr. Simarna Kaur and an undergraduate design team won awards for their posters.

Dr. Simarna Kaur, presented a poster titled "Regulation of Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator (CFTR) and Delta-F508 mutant by Rab GTPases", and came in 1st place in the Graduate student's division.

In the Undergraduate division, the BME senior design team of Mike Trapani, Steve Gadol, Adrienne Quiray, and William Kowalski, presented a poster titled "Back-UP", and came in 2nd place.

Both of these groups will receive an all-expense paid trip to the ISPE Annual Meeting in Florida in October 2008, where they will compete with teams from each state. Last year, Kate Freed was the overall winner in the undergraduate category for her poster titled "Impedance Mammography".

Congratulations to all the winners and good luck for the national competition in October.

For more information please contact:

Dr. Richard Berkof
Distinguished Industry Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Engineering Program
Edwin A. Stevens Hall
Room 306
Phone: 201.216.5538
Fax: 201.216.8315

rberkof@stevens.edu

Professor Ronald Besser of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science co-chaired the 10th International Conference on Microreaction Technology (IMRET-10), held April 6-10, 2008 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana.  The symposium featured more than 130 presentations on such topics pharmaceutical synthesis, enzymatic processes, energy generation and fuel processing, and mass and heat transport issues. The symposium was truly international in flavor as speakers came from more than a dozen different countries to present results. Special events included a panel discussion on commercialization of microreaction technology and a microprocess engineering poster session. Total attendance at the IMRET sessions was estimated at 250.

The series of International Conferences on Microreaction Technology (IMRET) started in 1997 with IMRET 1 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Since then ten IMRET conferences have been organized alternately in North America by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and in Europe by the German organization DECHEMA. IMRET 10 was organized under the umbrella of the Process Development Division at AIChE and dedicated to applied and commercial investigations of microprocess technology.

In 2008, the AIChE Spring National Meeting coincided with the 235th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). AIChE and ACS developed special joint programming for this occasion and attendees at both meetings were able to attend sessions of both.

For more information please contact:

Dr. Ronald Besser
Professor
Room 408
Phone: 201.216.5257
Fax: 240.255.4028

rbesser@stevens.edu

Recently, Dr. Edward Whittaker from the Department of Physics and Engineering Physics was appointed a Senior Faculty Fellow to the 2008 ONR-ASEE Summer Faculty Research Program. Dr. Whittaker will be a guest researcher at the Naval Research Lab in Washington (see http://chemistry.nrl.navy.mil/6180/index.php) where he will work on development of laser spectroscopic methods for analysis of fire suppression for the Navy.

For more information please contact:

Edward Whittaker
Professor
Burchard
Room B708
Phone: 201.216.5707
Fax: 201.216.5638

ewhittak@stevens.edu

Research in multiscale engineered systems will be combined with innovative approaches to doctoral education

The graduate education division of the National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a grant of $3,000,000, through its GK-12 program, to a multidisciplinary research team at Stevens Institute of Technology under the leadership of Professor Constantin Chassapis, Director of the Mechanical Engineering Department. In addition to Chassapis, who serves as the Principal Investigator, the team includes Associate Professor Sven Esche and Assistant Professor Frank Fisher from the Mechanical Engineering Department, Research Assistant Professor Rustam Stolkin from the Environmental and Ocean Engineering Department, as well as Elisabeth McGrath, Director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education (CIESE). Associate Professor Thomas Lechler from the School of Technology Management will also be involved. Over a period of five years, this project will provide fellowships to ten Stevens Ph.D. students per year (nine during the first year), who will conduct research in the area of multiscale engineered systems and working closely with high school teachers will disseminate their research results to several participating high schools within the framework of the New Jersey Alliance for Engineering Education (NJAEE), a multi-institutional partnership, which will also include Bergen Community College.

“This is a multi-faceted project,” explained Chassapis, “which will provide Stevens with a very exciting and unique opportunity. It will combine a significant expansion of our research efforts in the area of multiscale engineered systems with innovative approaches to preparing doctoral students for careers in teaching, while at the same time stimulating wide-reaching transformative changes in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education at the high school and community college levels.” In addition to their Ph.D. research, the Fellows, devoting ten hours per week during the academic year, will collaborate closely with engineering professors, education professionals, and high school teachers to design, develop, implement and help deliver, motivating educational modules that are based on their research work and aim at motivating the next generation of students to pursue careers in STEM fields. The fellows’ research will address a variety of issues related to multiscale engineered systems, one of the major multidisciplinary research initiatives at Stevens. An additional focus on engineering design, innovation and inventiveness will help to differentiate this unique doctoral program from competing offerings at other institutions. “By developing and integrating a course on ‘Communicating Engineering’ and a nine-credit graduate education certificate on ‘Teaching and Learning in STEM Disciplines’, this program will further enhance the educational and research experience of the participating fellows and help to attract highly qualified and motivated candidates to our rapidly growing full-time Ph.D. student population, in the area of multiscale engineered systems” remarked Esche, Director of the Mechanical Engineering Graduate Program. The outreach component of this project will positively affect approximately 11,700 high school students and provide considerable professional development opportunities to 130 participating high school teachers.

For more information please contact:

Dr. Constantin Chassapis
Professor & Department Director
Edwin A. Stevens Hall
Room 312/314
Phone: 201.216.5564
Fax: 201.216.8315

cchassap@stevens.edu