The Formula SAE Team from Missouri S&T started this racing season ranked No. 9 in the world, and S&T’s 2009 performances have bolstered that standing. Here are some of last spring’s highlights from various student design teams on campus.
Nuran Ercal, an expert in the study of lead toxicity, became the Richard K. Vitek/Foundation for Chemical Research Endowed Chair in Biochemistry at Missouri S&T on June 1. The chair was established in 2005 through a lead gift of nearly $800,000 from Richard K. Vitek, Chem’58, and his wife, Marilyn. It will help combine the expertise of faculty from the departments of chemistry, biological sciences, and chemical and biological engineering.
Kate Drowne, associate professor of English and technical communication, was named 2009 Missouri S&T Woman of the Year. Drowne, who is also director of the S&T Writing Center, was honored during a campus ceremony in April.
Missouri S&T has been selected by the Department of Energy to develop iron phosphate-based glasses for high-level nuclear waste disposal. These glasses can be processed to contain large concentrations of nuclear waste components in a way that keeps those components from dissolving in groundwater.
Movies like A Beautiful Mind notwithstanding, mathematics rarely gets top billing, or even a cameo appearance, in Hollywood movies. But students in Robert Roe’s Foundations of Mathematics class at Missouri S&T starred in a film of their own hoping to better understand a learning method with roots almost as old as mathematics itself.
Joseph Rupp, MetE’72, chair, president and CEO of Olin Corp., challenged graduates to think critically, but be ethical in their decisions during commencement ceremonies May 15-16.
This year, 32 Missouri S&T alumni and former faculty were inducted into Missouri S&T academies. Academy membership recognizes a career of distinction and invites members to share their wisdom, influence and resources with faculty and students.
Eleven Missouri S&T alumni received honorary professional degrees during Spring Commencement. The degrees recognize these graduates for professional achievement:
The nation’s economic downturn doesn’t seem to have affected the need for Missouri S&T graduates. This spring, nearly 400 recruiters from more than 150 employers registered to attend S&T’s Career Fair, held Feb. 17.
A team of 43 S&T students recently received $110,000 from the Air Force Research Laboratory to build and develop two microsatellites that will compete in the AFRL’s Nanosat 6 competition.
The survival of Jews in France during World War II is related to the aid of rural residents, says Shannon Fogg, assistant professor of history and political science. With a grant from the University of Missouri Research Board, Fogg is spending the summer in London studying “Rural Anti-Semitism in Britain and France During World War II.”
When the switch to all-digital broadcast signals is complete, thousands of old analog televisions in the United States will become obsolete. Oscar Hernandez, CE’08, wants to make sure they don’t end up in landfills, where their components can become toxic when exposed to the elements.
Former U.S. Sen. Jean Carnahan was named Honorary St. Patrick for the 101st St. Pat’s celebration at Missouri S&T. Carnahan, former First Lady of Missouri and a Rolla native, is a published author who resides in St. Louis.
Twelve S&T students visited the Missouri Capitol on April 21 to present their research projects to legislators for Undergraduate Research Day at the Capitol. The annual event allows students from all four UM System campuses to showcase their research.
Three Missouri S&T students were honored at the annual meeting of the Midwest Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls (MACURH) in February.
Muthanna H. Al-Dahhan, chair of chemical and biological engineering, received the Mesopotamia Award for Engineering from the Iraqi Cultural Office - USA for his achievements in engineering.
Missouri S&T discontinued its interdisciplinary engineering department at the end of the spring semester after the department failed to meet enrollment projections. All students in the program who completed prerequisite courses will be allowed to complete their degree.
"Hi, Mr. Jones. This is Amy calling from the civil engineering department at Missouri S&T. How are you this evening?” This probably sounds familiar to you since 90 percent of Missouri S&T donors contribute through the annual phonathon program.
The national recession has affected all sectors of the economy, including higher education. And while S&T is tightening its belt to deal with the economic downturn, Chancellor John F. Carney III maintains that this university’s focus on technology, energy, infrastructure and environmental research can help put the nation on the road to economic recovery.
On Sept. 23 the largest career fair in university history was hosted by the Career Opportunities Center. More than 301 employers and one international location were on campus with approximately 200 alumni returning to campus to recruit graduates of their alma mater.
When you think of college students, diapers don’t usually come to mind. But 18 project management students changed that this semester when they organized a diaper drive for a local charity.
American writers in the 1920s used the flapper as a sign of the times, says Kate Drowne, associate professor of English and technical communication.
In his new book, White Masculinity in the Recent South, Trent Watts examines the way southern men have been represented in pop culture since World War II, from southern Protestant churches to the music of Lynyrd Skynyrd. The idea grew from Watts’ interest in the 20th century South.
Yinfa Ma, Curators’ Teaching Professor of chemistry, received the 2008 J. Calvin Giddings Award for Excellence in Education from the American Chemical Society’s division of analytical chemistry.
Hirtz to lead design center
Paul Hirtz, EMgt’95, MS EMgt’97, PhD EMgt’02, assistant director of the Student Design and Experiential Learning Center, was named interim director of the center. He took over the new role on Nov. 26.
Missouri S&T was awarded $10,000 in research grants from the Environmental Protection Agency for research into solar energy and residential energy use.
Led by senior Michelle Rader, a team of S&T aerospace engineering students is trying to improve the speed of construction in space.
Don’t let barriers get in the way of future success, Joan Woodard, Math’73, told a group of nearly 600 graduating seniors during December 2008 commencement.
David Van Aken, professor of metallurgical engineering, was named Curators’ Teaching Professor of materials science and engineering during commencement Dec. 20. He joined the Missouri S&T faculty in 1993.
Ten honorary professional degrees were awarded during the Dec. 20 commencement exercises.
A map of the nation’s hydrogen fueling stations shows the facilities dotting both coastlines. But you’ll see only one dot in the Midwest. That fueling station happens to be on Missouri S&T’s new E3 Commons. The site was a stop for several futuristic cars on a coast-to-coast road trip last August to showcase hydrogen as an alternative energy solution.
Naresh Sharma’s Ph.D. research on predicting and reducing warranty costs will likely benefit many companies in the future. But for now, it has helped Sharma earn a historic degree. In July, Sharma became the 200th person to receive a Ph.D. from Missouri S&T’s engineering management and systems engineering department.
When the British Broadcasting Corp. decided to explore what voters in the heart of America were thinking about the presidential election, they selected Missouri S&T as the site for a town hall-style forum that was broadcast worldwide on the BBC World Service radio program Newshour.
What do you get when you combine a team of seven students, one staff advisor, aerial photography and Google? A 3-D model of the Missouri S&T campus and the designation “supermodeler.”
A familiar face for financial assistance
For years, she recruited students. Now she’s helping them with their finances.
Missouri S&T residence hall students and staff brought home six of 10 awards – more than any other school – from March’s annual business meeting of the Midwest Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls (MACURH).
At a campus so focused on engineering, science and technology, it might be easy to overlook the importance of the liberal arts and humanities in providing a well-rounded education. That is not the case at Missouri S&T. In February, the campus turned the spotlight on six humanities faculty members who regularly publish their research and
scholarship as well as teach undergraduates in history, English and foreign languages. Their scholarship covers topics as diverse as World War II history, baseball lingo, the literature of the Roaring ‘20s and the treatment of Chinese immigrants in the 1800s.
Some Missouri S&T undergraduates hope to squash the nerd stereotype commonly associated with computer
science by getting elementary school kids – especially girls – interested in the field. They’re doing so by developing fun recruitment software called Computer Science Recruitment for the 21st Century, or CSRecruit21.
Missouri S&T is once again one of the top-ranked graduate engineering schools in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report. The magazine’s annual rankings of graduate schools, released in March, listed Missouri S&T 67th among the nation’s best graduate engineering schools and 39th among public graduate engineering schools. The rankings are included in the U.S. News guidebook’s “premium” online edition at www.usnews.com.
While most Missouri S&T students were returning to classes after winter break, sophomore Jacob Brakeman was learning how to fall.
Using $3 million in imaginary funds, an interdisciplinary group of Missouri S&T students garnered the top spot in an international hydrogen student design contest in March.
Teams from 22 other colleges and universities from around the world developed proposals for using hydrogen technologies to solve noise pollution, energy efficiency and other critical issues at the Columbia Metropolitan Airport in Columbia, S.C.
Walter Eversman’s contributions to the field of aircraft noise reduction earned him the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ 2008 Aeroacoustics Award.
Eversman, Curators’ Professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, has spent his career trying to quiet the world’s skies. His work is widely recognized and used for noise control by major aircraft engine companies. Among his accomplishments is the development of the Eversman Code, which has become an industry standard design tool for turbofan and tonal radiation.
Described by her students and colleagues as someone they admire and adore, Melanie Mormile became the newest member of an elite group of female faculty at Missouri S&T: the Woman of the Year recipients.
This is the 12th year for the Woman of the Year award, which is funded by Cindy Tang, Econ’85, founder of Insight Industries Inc., one of the largest software engineering companies in Wisconsin. The award is given to an outstanding female faculty member who has helped to improve the campus climate for women and has served as a role model for other faculty and students through her research, scholarship and service.
Elizabeth Cudney’s leadership in quality and lean manufacturing has earned her one of the American Society for Quality’s top awards. Cudney, PhD EMgt’06, assistant professor of engineering management and systems engineering, received the Armand V. Feigenbaum Medal during ASQ’s World Conference on Quality and Improvement, held in May in Houston.
Two Missouri S&T chemistry professors recently received a faculty award from the John W. Claypool Fund for Medical Research.
Nuran Ercal, professor of chemistry and adjunct associate professor of internal medicine at St. Louis University, and Yinfa Ma, Curators’ Teaching Professor of chemistry, have earned the $1,000 award to help fund their research on a treatment for HIV-1 associated dementia and a method for non-invasive pre-cancer screening, respectively. The annual award, established by Claypool, MS ME’60, recognizes excellence in medical research.
Eight days. Three thousand kilometers. Cars powered by the sun. October 2007 marked the 20th anniversary of the Panasonic World Solar Challenge (PWSC), a solar car race through the Australian Outback from Darwin to Adelaide. While the Missouri S&T Solar Car Team did not make the journey this year, two alumni did. Brian Call, ME’97, MS EMch’99, and Gail Lueck, EMgt’02, MS EMgt’03, both served in volunteer staff positions for the event, helping with inspections of the vehicles in Darwin and working at the control stops along the race.
350
Mops on hand for 2008 street painting.
175
Mops needed on a usual St. Pat’s weekend.
218
MSM students who skipped school for the first celebration.
570
Approximate number of St. Pat’s Board alumni attending the 100th celebration, nearly half the living total.
630
Gallons of paint used to turn Pine Street green.
400/300/25
Hot dogs/Pizzas/Kegs of Beer at the Miner Alumni Association’s post-parade celebration.
Missouri S&T has been selected by GE Aviation as the home of a new University Development Center to be located in Rolla. At least 30 engineering positions are expected to be created in Rolla as a result of the partnership.
Two engineering graduates – Gary Forsee, CE’72, and Cheryl Walker, EE’86 – have assumed new leadership roles for the four-campus University of Missouri System.
This past December, Daniel J. Tabacchi, MinE’07, became the highest-ranked Army ROTC cadet in the university’s history.
Last fall, Missouri S&T author John C. McManus released his sixth book on military history. The new book, which covers everything from the French and Indian War through Iraq, isn’t necessarily for scholars. In fact, the title is U.S. Military History for Dummies.
In an effort to improve campus security, Missouri S&T administrators have implemented a mass notification system to reach all students, faculty and staff in the event of an emergency.
Seven graduate students recently became the university’s first MBA graduates.
‘Miners in Space’ teams prepare for zero gravity
Two teams of Missouri S&T students will get to experience zero gravity in June as part of a NASA outreach program. One team will conduct welding experiments aboard NASA’s “Weightless Wonder” C-9 aircraft, while the other will test a refrigerant-based propulsion system in the microgravity environment.
A team of Missouri S&T students recently created a breathalyzer using cultured yeast cells and an E. coli-infested bacterium that changes colors in response to the presence of sugar. But they weren’t trying to gross each other out with creepy inventions. They were participating in a competition at MIT last November.
Chancellor John F. Carney III used that equation, conceived by Dick Stegemeier, PetE’50, in his Dec. 3 State of the University address to highlight how Missouri S&T is uniquely qualified to tackle the world’s energy and environmental issues.
S&T ranked among top 20 for faculty research
Missouri S&T has one of the most productive research levels among universities that specialize in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, according to a recent study by Academic Analytics of Stony Brook, N.Y.
Missouri S&T is ranked 14th among the nation’s specialized “STEM” (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) universities in Academic Analytics’ 2006-07 Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index.
It takes several big trucks and a fair amount of logistical planning to ship a house to Washington, D.C.
Representatives of General Motors Corp. came to UMR Sept. 19 to discuss career opportunities with students and accept resumes for full-time, intern and cooperative positions.
Human-powered vehicle racer Jerrod Bouchard, a senior in mechanical engineering, recorded the third-fastest time ever by a college student this fall during the World Human-Powered Speed Challenge in Battle Mountain, Nev.
Garmin, designer and manufacturer of navigation and communication equipment, visits UMR.
Last summer, Boeing opened its doors to students in UMR’s Minority Engineering and Science Program, a scholarship program supported in part by Boeing since 2003.
Aerospace engineering graduate students Mike Dancer and Jason Searcy took first place in the Student Scholarship Competition session at the 21st Annual Conference on Small Satellites for their paper about the UMR SAT mission.
Cleaner transportation is coming to rural Missouri, thanks to a joint effort by UMR and several federal agencies.
Armed with a GPS unit, Michelle Marincel, NucE’06, and Brian Payne, a senior in civil and environmental engineering, bushwacked and backtracked their way through the Medicine Bow National Forest near the Wyoming border with Colorado last summer in an effort to blaze a better trail along the Continental Divide.
Thomas Weigert, Motorola Fellow and vice president of the company’s Global Software Group, became UMR’s first Daniel C. St. Clair Chair of Computer Science on Sept. 1.
Thulasi Kumar, former director of institutional research at the University of Northern Iowa, started work as director of institutional research and assessment at UMR on July 1.
The 2006-2007 school year was a record-breaker for the UMR Career Opportunities Center.
This year, 39 UMR alumni and former faculty were inducted into UMR’s seven academies. Mechanical and aerospace engineering held its academy’s induction ceremony in October. Engineering management held ceremonies in October and April. The remaining five academies held their induction ceremonies in April.
On June 18, two UMR faculty members filled new positions created as part of UMR's restructuring.
UMR Chancellor John F. Carney III received the 2007 Kenneth A. Stonex National Roadside Safety Award from the Transportation Research Board, a part of the National Academy of Sciences, at the Transportation Research Board’s 86th Annual Meeting in Washington D.C.
The Boeing Co. has donated $150,000 to UMR’s Project Lead the Way (PLTW).
The gift, which applies as a match toward a $387,000 grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, will help develop and expand the program. PLTW helps introduce engineering to Missouri middle and high schools by focusing on activities and team-based projects that give students the chance to work with their hands and see how math fits into those activities.
UMR graduate student Steven Jung is spending Independence Day with a group of Nobel Prize winners. Jung was selected to participate in the 2007 Meeting of Nobel Laureates and Students in Lindau, Germany.
A team of UMR students designed and built an off-road and off-land vehicle for the Society of Automotive Engineers’ Baja East competition, held in Ocala, Fla., in April.
A team of female students used their skills in 19th century mining techniques to win a world championship in “mucking” at the Intercollegiate Mining Competition March 24 in Tucson, Ariz.
This spring, UMR proved conclusively that it has the best human-powered vehicle team in the nation. The UMR team won the West Coast challenge April 13-15 at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California and then won the East Coast challenge (again) May 11-13 in Ocala, Fla.
On April 17, UMR student researchers showed Missouri legislators how glass is being used to strengthen bone tissue, how breakthroughs in chemistry might result in a new method of removing lead from the bloodstream, how nutrients in streams can be monitored more efficiently and why flood plains need to be checked for high levels of salt.
