• Republished with permission of emagination, a School of Engineering electronic publication

Two engineering students have received prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships (NSF GRF):  Erik Carboni, a doctoral candidate working in the laboratory of Dr. Anson Ma (Chemical, Materials & Biomolecular Eng.) and senior Brittany Nkounkou (Computer Science & Engineering), who will pursue a doctoral degree at Cornell University in fall 2012.

Erik’s work involves the delivery of drug molecules to cancerous tumors via the use of nanoparticles. In particular, he is interested in the effect of blood flow on the diffusion and delivery of anti-cancer drugs to the tumor site.  Brittany, who is interested in programming languages, participated in UConn’s Bio-Grid NSF-sponsored Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program led by Dr. Chun-Hsi Huang and also conducted research with Dr. Yufeng Wu.  NSF Graduate Research Fellows receive a three-year annual stipend $30,000 plus a yearly $12,000 cost-of-education allowance.  In 2011, NSF awarded just 2,000 Fellowships from 12,000 applicants.

• Republished with permission of emagination, a School of Engineering electronic publication

The School of Engineering has named five outstanding faculty members as inaugural Castleman Term Professors in Engineering Innovation. In making the announcement, Dean Mun Y. Choi noted, “Each of these outstanding individuals embodies exceptional achievements and the application of innovative approaches in research, education and outreach.” The three-year professorships recognize outstanding faculty members at the assistant and associate professor level and honor Professor Francis L. Castleman, who served as a distinguished Dean of Engineering during the formative years of the School of Engineering.

Horea Ilies, Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Ilies’ research focus is on the development of new engineering models, representations, algorithms, and design semantics to enable systematic, and efficient design, analysis and manufacturing of engineering artifacts. He has received approximately $2.9M in research funding, including the NSF CAREER Award, holds two U.S. Patents, and has 2 book chapters, 24 refereed journal articles along with 23 full-paper conference proceedings. Dr. Ilies is a member of the Editorial Board for the Journals of Computer Aided Design (Elsevier), as well as Computer Aided Design and Applications, and a member of the Executive Committee of the ASME Design Automation Conference.

Yu Lei, Chemical, Materials & Biomolecular Engineering. Dr. Lei’s research focuses on sensors and environmental biotechnology for diverse applications, ranging from the diagnosis of disease to new drug discovery, screening and food safety, as well as pollutants. His scholarly output includes three patents, two book chapters, 67 archival peer-reviewed journal publications and 68 conference abstracts, with over 700 non-self citations to date. Dr. Lei has received more than $2.6M in federal research funding since joining UConn in 2006. He serves on the Editorial Boards of the journals Applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology, Analytical Letters and two newly launched journals, Materials Focus and Energy Focus.

Nicholas Lownes, Civil & Environmental Engineering. Dr. Lownes is Director of the Center for Transportation and Livable Systems (CTLS) at UConn, and his research program focuses on public transportation systems. His research efforts include: a Department of Homeland Security-funded project aimed at developing methods for identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities to natural and human disruptions in public transportation networks; and the application to U.S. networks of a novel method for the prediction of optimal network evolution based on the growth of slime mold. Dr. Lownes has received more than $1M in research funding to date.

Laurent Michel, Computer Science & Engineering. Dr. Michel, who joined UConn in 2002, holds expertise in the design and implementation of domain specific languages for combinatorial optimization. Dr. Michel has developed several influential systems including Newton, Numerica, the Optimization Programming Language OPL, the constrained-based library Modeler++ and the local search tools Localizer and Localizer++ and Comet. His research grants total more than $1.2M to date, including his NSF CAREER Award, and he has published two books, more than 25 journal papers and over 50 conference papers, with cumulative citations of over 1500. Dr. Michel also serves on the Editorial Boards of Constraints and Mathematical Programming Computation.

Mohammad Tehranipoor, Electrical & Computer Engineering. Dr. Tehranipoor joined UConn in 2006 and has published 36 journal papers, 124 conference papers, four books and 10 book chapters. His work has received 1,200 citations to date.  Dr. Tehranipoor’s areas of expertise span computer-aided design and testing, reliable systems design at the nanoscale, secure integrated circuit design, hardware security and trust, and design-for-testability. He has received an NSF CAREER Award, IEEE Computer Society’s Meritorious Service Award, and been recognized as a distinguished speaker for the IEEE Computer Society and ACM. Dr. Tehranipoor has received more than $3.5M in research funding and gifts since 2006.

The selection criteria for the Castleman Term Professorships included research productivity and impact; teaching contribution, including student mentorship and the development of novel teaching activities; professional service; and the promotion of leadership and collegiality within and beyond UConn.

Hollin is a UConn senior majoring in Chemical Engineering. She takes pride in her ability to maintain a well-balanced life by keeping up on her coursework and engaging in her favorite hobbies, rock climbing and home brewing. Watch the video.

Ethan Butler (’12) was awarded the Portz Interdisciplinary Research Fellowship prize. This is a nationally recognized award and Ethan’s proposal was evaluated amongst several very strong proposals and deemed the most promising.  Ethan, who is the president of Engineers Without Borders at UCONN, has built a team of 6 undergraduate students to work on his project entitled “A Response to the Water Crisis: Evaluating and Improving a Novel, Zero-Energy Water Filtration System for Use in Ethiopia.” The review committee felt that his proposal was well conceived and exceptionally well presented. Ethan, who is advised by Professor Jeffrey McCutcheon, will receive $5,000 to support his project.

• By John Giardina, republished with permission of emagination, a School of Engineering electronic publication

On February 24, about 30 people gathered at the Student Union to recognize and celebrate the important work performed in the last year by the UConn chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB).  Members of EWB presented their current projects and described the ways in which they are attempting to change the lives of people in some of the most impoverished communities in the world.  The speakers included the president of EWB-UConn, Ethan Butler (CHEG ’12), and EWB members Aaron Aguirre-Castillo (CE ’11), Dana Boyer (ENVE ’12), Jorge Simbaqueba (CE Graduate Student), and Scott Cipoletti (CE ’12).  Each highlighted the impressive work accomplished by the group over the past year.

EWB resides in a special class of college service groups.  They are not only serving those who are less fortunate, but also practicing their professional craft at thesame time.  Their mission is to apply their relatively rare skills toward solving engineering problems, all the while adhering to the political, social and cultural boundaries of the societies they are serving.  Mr. Butler emphasized this point, saying, “We focus on the implementation of sustainable engineering projects.  There are many ways in which you can help a community, but we aim to utilize our engineering expertise in order to support their development.  We want to insure that, even if our community partnership comes to a close, the projects we implement can continue to work.”

Target: Nicaragua

EWB’s first project, focusing on a small, impoverished Nicaraguan village called La Prusia, is led by Ms. Boyer and Mr. Cipoletti.  The people of La Prusia are all but cut off from the nearby city of Granada, with the single connecting road almost entirely unusable.  This is because the road sustains chronic, destructive flooding during the rainy season, which then destroys the path and makes it impassible during the dry season.  The lack of a usable road inhibits the citizens of La Prusia from getting jobs, selling goods, receiving better health care, and obtaining higher education.  The lack of opportunities for bettering their circumstances stifles the citizens of La Prusia, keeping them in a continuous state of poverty.  EWB members plan to repair the road connecting La Prusia and Granada, opening up a lifeline that can bring vitality to the people along the road.  Read more about the team’s activities in La Prusia here.

EWB members want to return to La Prusia for further inspection in hopes that, soon, they may be able to begin work on the roadway.

Target: Ethiopia

Chapter members are pursuing a second project, involving construction of water purification systems in Ethiopia.  Water sources in Ethiopia are ravaged by both surface and ground water contamination by toxic metals and other impurities.  UConn EWB members hope to find a way to place sustainable filtration systems in villages throughout Ethiopia.  They are investigating alternative water purification systems and are particularly interested in a novel system employing forward osmosis, which is currently being researched in the laboratory of Dr. Jeffrey McCutcheon.  They also intend to conduct on-the-ground assessment surveys to better understand the needs of the people they will be serving while also gathering certain health metrics.  In the long-term, the team hopes to create purification systems using easily obtainable, local materials, to directly serve the needs of the people.

Honoring Service

During the evening, the UConn EWB team also acknowledged the important contributions made by students, faculty and private-sector mentors.  Among those honored were advisor-mentors Domenico Carusone (’12 ME), Bob Benzinger, a UConn alumnus from The Hartford, and Gerry Hardisty of CES, Inc.  UConn faculty who have advised the group were also lauded, including Dr. Maria Chrysochoou (Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering – CEE), Dr. McCutcheon, and Dr. Amvrossios Bagtzoglou (Department Head, CEE).  Student Dana Boyer and Scott Cipoletti were singled out for special recognition.  In addition, the group expressed thanks to Dean of Engineering Mun Choi, Assistant Dean Marty Wood, and GEI Consultants for their generous support and funding of EWB.

Donations & Volunteers Needed

Through its projects, EWB-UConn is becoming a model for student service.  They cannot perform their work, however, without their dedicated volunteers and generous donors.  The cost of the La Prusia project alone will cost about $30,000 per year, for five years.  They are, accordingly, always open to new volunteers and donations.  Mr. Butler describes EWB as creating the next generation of leaders.  “EWB helps students develop the sort of expertise required for the future issues faced by our society and engineers: global warming, pollution control, water availability, and more,” he says.  “EWB creates engineers who are socially minded and dedicated to solving these global problems.”  After seeing the tasks EWB engineers have already accomplished, one can expect to see them solving problems at the forefront of their fields for years to come.  More information about EWB-UConn and its work can be found here.  Donations can be submitted online here.