Auburn Engineering 2019 Fall Magazine

uburn A E N G I N E E R I N G

Welcome Home

The wait is finally over.

This fall, the Samuel Ginn College of

Engineering opened the doors to the $44 million Brown-Kopel Engineering Student Achievement Center. This facility, which was made possible through the generosity of John and Rosemary Brown and more than 50 other alumni and friends, is now home to the offices of Recruiting and Scholarships, Advising, Tutoring, the Engineering Academic Excellence Program, Career Development and Corporate Relations, an innovation laboratory, design studio, more than 40 large- and small-group study spaces, three large classrooms and much, much more.

From the Dean It’s hard to believe the fall semester has already come to a close, but the latter half of 2019 has been an exciting time for Auburn Engineering.

In July, our country celebrated the 50th anniversary of one of the greatest accomplishments in human history — landing on the moon. In this issue, we tell the stories of several Auburn engineers who played significant roles in making the launch and landing possible, along with how the college will once again play a vital part in getting the U.S. back to the moon — and beyond — in the next five years.

One of the most anticipated events in the college’s recent history happened in August, as we opened the doors to the $44 million Brown-Kopel Engineering Student Achievement Center. Thanks to the generosity of John and Rosemary Brown, and more than 50 other alumni and friends of the college, we now have one of the most comprehensive engineering student support facilities in the country. This state-of-the-art building is now home to our recruiting and scholarship office, K-12 outreach, advising, a tutoring center, the Engineering Academic Excellence Program and our newly formed Career Development and Corporate Relations office, which has changed the game in the way we connect students with potential employers. In addition, the creation of the Carol Ann Gavin Garden where the old shop buildings once stood has created an oasis for our students in what I feel is the most beautiful and tranquil spot on campus. The garden sits atop more than 44,000 square feet of instructional space, including the Wind Tunnel Laboratory and space for future build-out.

Also in August, we broke ground on our $22 million Advanced Structural Testing Laboratory. This cuttingedge laboratory will include a unique geotechnical chamber that will allow our faculty and students to perform testing and research that, up until now, has only been possible in the field. In addition, a wind testing facility will allow replication of the dynamic wind loads caused by extreme weather events on

large-scale specimens, thus increasing the lifespan and safety of structures. In turn, the research conducted in this facility will not only advance our state, region and country economically, but it will also help save hundreds to thousands of lives from natural disasters such as the deadly tornado we experienced here in Lee County in March.

Lastly, we were honored this fall when we received the latest U.S. News and World Report’s Best College’s rankings, which placed our undergraduate program at 29th among all public engineering institutions. This peer-conducted ranking system is a reflection of how others have taken notice of our upward trajectory.

This ranking is a direct result of the work, hard work, of our students, faculty and staff. And while this accomplishment is worthy of celebration and recognition, we must press on and continue to enhance what we feel is the best student-centered engineering experience in America.

Indeed, it is an exciting time to be a part of Auburn Engineering. I congratulate our newest Auburn Engineering graduates and can’t wait to see how they add to the immense talent we have placed in the American workforce as they go out and change the world.

War Eagle!

Christopher B. Roberts

Contents Fall 2019 Volume 29, Issue 2 DEAN Christopher B. Roberts DIRECTOR AND EDITOR, COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING Austin Phillips

4 From the Dean Message from Dean Christopher B. Roberts 6 Happenings A snapshot of some recent accomplishments in

and around the college

14

It’s Here The Brown-Kopel Center opened in August, and the building is already changing the game for our students

18

Recruiting Advantage The Office of Recruiting and Scholarships now has a showpiece for potential students

22

Elevating Advising The new home for advising is a game-changer for keeping our students on the right path

26

Transcendent Tutoring Students have flocked to the new, spacious tutoring suite

CONTRIBUTORS Chris Anthony Drew Daws Christine Hall Jeremy Henderson Morgan Martin Brian Wesley Lauren Winton

An Oasis for All The Carol Ann Gavin Garden is now one of the most beautiful areas on campus

GRAPHIC DESIGN Danny Doyle

Dedicated Donors More than 50 alumni and friends have supported the Brown-Kopel Center construction and programming

WEB MANAGER Tyler Patterson VIDEOGRAPHY/PHOTOGRAPHY Marcus Kluttz Alex Camerlengo Visit Auburn Engineering online at eng.auburn.edu/magazine for videos, photos, podcasts and more. You may also submit news items, suggestions or comments by clicking the Contact Us tab.

Auburn Engineering is published twice yearly by the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering.

Engineering Communications and Marketing c/o Editor 1210D Shelby Center Auburn, AL 36849 334.844.2444 © 2019 Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, Auburn University

Auburn University is an equal opportunity educational institution/employer.

30

Early Excellence The Engineering Academic Excellence Program sets up underrepresented students for success

34

Opening New Doors The newly formed Office of Career Development and Corporate Relations is connecting students with the right employers

38 42

46

To the Moon and Back, 50 Years Later The college’s alumni played a huge role in the moon landing, and now we’re planning to help the U.S. get back there

50

One Giant Leap for Rocketry Jim Odom, ’55 mechanical engineering, was a pioneer for the Apollo program

The War Eagle Almost Landed C.C. Williams, ’54 mechanical engineering, almost made “War Eagle” the first words said on the moon

Road Back to the Moon Goes Through Auburn Auburn Engineering is playing a vital role in getting the U.S. back to the moon...and beyond

54 58

62 Touchdown, Auburn (Engineering) A mechanical engineering

professor has helped football players return to the field through 3-D printing

Basketball, is helping athletes on the court through data analysis

68 It’s My Job John Carter, ’88 mechanical engineering and CEO of Noah 70

5 Minutes With Jan Davis, ’77 mechanical engineering, is a former astronaut who reflects on her time in space

72

From the Faculty Masatoshi Hirabayashi, assistant professor of aerospace engineering, is an authority on asteroid exploration

74

Faculty Highlights Our dynamic faculty and staff exemplifies excellence and innovation through cutting-edge research, instruction and outreach

77

The Award Goes to . . . The Auburn Alumni Engineering Council honored four alumni as Distinguished Auburn Engineers, two as Outstanding Young Auburn Engineers and one for Superior Service to the college

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Happenings

Adm. Michael Rogers returns to Auburn as part of Leaders on the Plains series Retired Adm. Michael Rogers spoke at Auburn University on Nov. 1 as part of the Leaders on the Plains series, hosted by the McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security.

Rogers, a 1981 business graduate from Auburn, retired from the U.S. Navy in 2018 after nearly 37 years of naval service, rising to the rank of four-star admiral. He is a former commander of the U.S. Cyber Command and a former director of the National Security Agency.

Adm. Michael Rogers

Rogers reflected upon his experiences on campus, in government and in the private sector after a long career devoted to public service. The conversation spanned a range of cybersecurity-related issues, including major threat actors, cyber defense, deterrence, other U.S. response measures and the best path forward for the United States and its allies.

CISA directors speak on cybersecurity and infrastructure Auburn University and the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering recently hosted the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) director and assistant director during a two-day event.

CISA Director Christopher C. Krebs delivered his address Aug. 22, laying out the agency’s five principles for defending today’s cyber infrastructure and securing the cyber tools of tomorrow.

Krebs said that the five principles are leadership and collaboration, risk-prioritization, results-oriented, respect for national values and unified mission and agency.

“We have to be relentless in driving down risk, in pushing awareness of the things that need to be done by the state and local community and by the federal community. That’s our job,” Krebs said. “[Our job is] understanding what the risks are, bringing people together to manage these issues and then building capacity.”

6 | Auburn Engineering

Christopher C. Krebs, CISA Director

Brian Harrell, CISA’s assistant director, spoke the following day, Aug. 23, outlining unique cyber threats facing the national infrastructure and pledged his agency’s assistance in addressing them head-on.

“There is a convergence between physical and cybersecurity,” Harrell said. “Today, we can no longer live in these silos – the cyber silo, the physical silo and the emergency management silo. It is a converged, hybrid threat landscape today.”

Visit Auburn Engineering online at

eng.auburn.edu/magazine

for video and photos of these stories

Happenings

Auburn jumps four spots in U.S. News and World Report’s undergraduate rankings Auburn University’s Samuel Ginn College of Engineering continues to emerge as one of the nation’s top engineering colleges, ranking No. 29 among public institutions in the U.S. News & World Report’s 2020 Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs.

Auburn moved up four spots among public institutions from No. 33 in the 2019 rankings.

“This ranking shows how far we have come in creating a premier student-centered engineering experience at Auburn,” said Christopher B. Roberts, dean of engineering.

“We have invested significant resources and energy into hiring renowned faculty, developing exceptional studentsupport programs, building unrivaled facilities and providing new opportunities for experiential learning. This ranking is a testament to that commitment.”

Auburn Engineering offers 13 undergraduate degrees across 10 engineering disciplines as well as a host of global programs.

U.S. News & World Report’s Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs rankings are released annually each fall.

Phillips appointed director of communications and marketing Austin Phillips has been named director of communications and marketing for Auburn University’s Samuel Ginn College of Engineering.

Phillips, who previously served as assistant director of communications and marketing for the college, began his appointment on Oct. 21.

Austin Phillips

“Having worked closely with Austin over the past five years, I am confident in his ability to lead our communications and marketing team and develop innovative approaches to tell the Auburn Engineering story,” said Christopher B. Roberts, dean of engineering.

Phillips succeeds Jim Killian, who retired from Auburn University in August after a 45-year tenure with Auburn University, including nearly 40 years with the College of Engineering.

“We are thankful for all of Jim’s contributions to Auburn Engineering and are excited to have Austin take the torch from here,” Roberts said.

CCHS hosts global forum on securing elections As authoritarian regimes escalate their cyber attacks against democratic nations, democracies must work together to shore up their defenses and secure elections going forward, former government officials said at a recent forum on election security.

Auburn University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security (CCHS) hosted a forum on Sept. 26 in

Washington, D.C., in partnership with the Center for Internet Security and the Embassy of Estonia, on securing elections around the globe.

The forum featured a dialogue between former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves and former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on the challenges of securing elections and lessons learned from

previous cyber attacks.

Other panelists included Kathy Boockvar, acting secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; Liisa Past, chief national cyber risk officer for the Estonian government; Joseph Lorenzo Hall, chief technologist for the Center for Democracy and Technology; and Adm. Pete Neffenger, board chairman at Smartmatic.

Auburn Engineering | 7

Happenings

Chemical engineering freshman wins Miss Auburn University

Engineering alumnus brings musical road to campus Tim Arnold, ’94 industrial engineering, had an idea to put America’s newest musical road on the university campus.

“The concept is really kind of complex and simple at the same time,” Arnold said. “It’s reverse engineering the physics of sound.”

Collins McMurray and Aubie

Collins McMurray, a freshman in chemical engineering, was crowned Miss Auburn University in October.

McMurray beat out a field of nine competitors to win the Miss Auburn University crown and a scholarship worth one year of in-state tuition.

“Having the opportunity to serve a campus I have known and loved for a very long time is so incredible,” she said.

Even though she has only been at Auburn since August, McMurray said Auburn Engineering’s student experience is providing her with the necessary tools to succeed in school as well as other endeavors.

“So far, I have absolutely loved Auburn,” she said. “I am so fortunate to be part of a university that strives to give us so many opportunities to succeed, and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

8 | Auburn Engineering

Tim Arnold

The section of South Donahue Drive is dubbed “War Eagle Road,” as it plays part of Auburn’s fight song, “War Eagle.” Drivers operating a vehicle at 35 mph experience the first seven musical notes as they head toward campus.

A musical note is simply sound vibrations at a particular frequency. An ‘A’ note, for instance, vibrates at 440 Hz per second. Arnold used the speed limit and the frequency of each note to determine how often a material would appear in the roadway to make the right sound.

“It’s that place where science meets art,” Arnold said of the musical road. “I hope it puts Auburn in that Cult Americana of the other roads.”

With the support of Christopher B. Roberts, dean of engineering, Arnold assembled a team of faculty and students, including Eldon Triggs, Maria Auad, Jeff Thompson, Edmon Perkins and Alex Tucker, to name a few, from chemical, mechanical, polymer and aerospace engineering to assist making the idea a reality.

War Eagle Road is the first musical road with the surface application material, the first on a college campus and first with a fight song. Lancaster’s roadway plays “The William Tell Overture,” while a section of Route 66 in New Mexico plays “America the Beautiful.”

One sign reminds drivers of the speed limit; another sign thanks the College of Engineering for its support.

“Reverse engineering the math makes people drive at 35 and other musical roads have been shown to sort of induce participation. People want to drive at 35 so that they get to hear the musical road,” Arnold said.

Visit Auburn Engineering online at

eng.auburn.edu/ginning

for podcasts featuring Collins McMurray and Tim Arnold

Happenings

Computer engineering senior developing translation technology for sign language Ryan McGill, a senior in computer engineering, recently completed an internship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory.

While working at the lab this summer, McGill and his team won the lab’s Intern Innovative Idea Challenge for their work in developing a system to allow smoother communication between American Sign Language (ASL) and English speakers.

Ryan McGill

“Our project that we designed is a modular system that can fit into either your phone, a Google Glass-type device or through your computer via Skype,” McGill said. “Its function would be to allow two-way conversations in the language the users prefer, so in this case ASL and English.”

MIT is sponsoring McGill’s continued work on the ENVOY, or Enabling Natural-language Versatility and Opportunity, project throughout the academic year. He said his team will work on developing a prototype and hope to show a proof-ofconcept by spring 2020.

Truly a spirit that is not afraid

“I am really glad the professors were supportive of me going in and taking her notes because I really enjoyed some of those classes,” Carla said.

When Auburn University students cross the stage at Auburn Arena during graduation, they normally do so with their support group of family and friends cheering them on.

“I may not have understood it all, but I liked experiencing the different atmospheres and teaching styles.”

Graduation held extra special meaning for the Wilson family as Anna is the first one in the family to graduate from a university.

In May, Anna Wilson, who majored in industrial and systems engineering, crossed the stage to loud applause — with her mother by her side.

Anna, who is quadriplegic, has never let her disability hold her back. She graced the cover of the fall 2016 edition of Auburn Engineering magazine, where she told her story.

Anna was accidentally shot by one of her siblings 15 years ago. The bullet went through her skull, barely missing her eye, and lodged in the C2 and C3 vertebrae.

Anna Wilson and her mother, Carla Wilson

Since the accident, Carla Wilson has been by her daughter’s side and was with Anna all through her Auburn experience. Along with assisting Anna in all her day-to-day needs and pushing her wheelchair around campus, Carla also functioned as Anna’s note-taker in class.

Anna is currently in graduate school at Auburn. After completing her master’s degree, her goal is to find a job relating to health care in industrial and systems engineering.

“I want to go into health care and lean engineering is a newer field that has been used within health care over the past 10 years. It has solidified my interest in the field and the direction I would like to go in,” she said.

Auburn Engineering | 9

Happenings

Basketball student-athlete recognized for academic achievement Will Macoy, a junior in industrial and systems engineering and guard on the Auburn Tigers basketball team, has been named to the 2018-19 National Association of Basketball Coaches Honors Court.

Macoy is a three-year member of the Auburn Tigers basketball team and appeared in the Tigers’ 97-80 Sweet 16 victory over North Carolina en route to the Final Four in 2019. Previously a walk-on, Macoy was awarded a basketball scholarship at the beginning of 2019, along with electrical engineering senior Cole Blackstock.

Will Macoy

In order to be named to the Honors Court, student-athletes must meet the following criteria: • Academically a junior or senior and a varsity player.

• Cumulative grade point average of 3.2 or higher at the conclusion of the 2018-19 academic year.

• Students must have matriculated at least one year at their current institution.

• Member of a NCAA Division I, II, III, or NAIA Division I or II institution with a NABC member coach.

Mechanical engineering graduate awarded Fulbright Scholarship

Freshman crowned world PowerPoint champion

Matt Weist, ’19 mechanical engineering, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct research in Stuttgart, Germany for the 2018-19 academic year.

Freshman Seth Maddox captured the 2019 Microsoft Office Specialist PowerPoint World Championship in New York in July.

While at Auburn, Weist completed Matt Weist four co-op rotations in the aviation industry and worked as an undergraduate research assistant in the GPS and Vehicle Dynamics Laboratory.

The 18-year-old showed off his presentation skills in the 2016 version of PowerPoint by dispatching 23 competitors from around the world to win the title and a $7,000 prize.

“The Fulbright offers our students a life-altering experience,” said Andy Gillespie, assistant provost and director of the Office of International Programs. “This international experience will forever change their views of the world and help them to realize how they can make an impact on the world.”

The Fulbright Program is the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program and is designed to increase mutual understanding and build lasting connections between the people of the United States and citizens of other countries.

10 | Auburn Engineering

Seth Maddox

Maddox qualified for the world championship by winning the 2019 Microsoft Office Specialist PowerPoint National Championship in June, emerging from a field of 146 finalists after beating out 365,000 competitors who participated in the preliminary round.

“The world championship exam was quite a bit harder, so I was very surprised that I won,” said Maddox, a computer engineering major. “I thank the Lord that I was able to do as well as I did and win the competition.”

Visit Auburn Engineering online at

eng.auburn.edu/ginning

for a podcast featuring Seth Maddox

Happenings

Civil Engineering Advisory Board names two emeritus members A pair of civil engineering alumni — Jeff Stone and Dale York — were recently honored with emeritus member status on the Civil Engineering Advisory Board.

Stone received his bachelor’s in civil engineering from the university in 1979 and is currently the executive vice president of Brasfield & Gorrie.

He is the past chairman of the Auburn University Foundation, as well as the Auburn Alumni Engineering Council.

Jeff Stone and Dale York

York, who earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in 1976 and 1978, respectively, is the immediate past president and senior principle of LBYD Inc. He is a past chairman, vice chairman and treasurer of the Auburn Alumni Engineering Council.

These two individuals follow the board’s first emeritus member, David Dixon, ’76.

After graduating from Auburn University, Dixon earned his master’s in the same discipline from Stanford University in 1977.

Winners from 2019 Graduate Engineering Research Showcase In November, Auburn Engineering graduate students from across the college highlighted their research endeavors at the 2019 Graduate Engineering Research Showcase.

The annual event, sponsored by the Council of Engineering Graduate Students, consists of poster presentations that showcase the work of Auburn Engineering’s graduate researchers.

First place went to Promod Chowdhury, mechanical engineering; second place to Dan Jackson, civil engineering; and third place to Iman Hassani, chemical engineering.

Honorable mentions included Morgan Ellis, chemical engineering; Ferdous Finklea, chemical engineering; Ehsan Hassani, chemical engineering; Kanak Parmar, aerospace engineering; and Amanda Sterling, mechanical engineering.

Students who received departmental awards were Paul

More than 130 students participated in the 2019 Graduate Engineering Research Showcase.

Kovacic, aerospace engineering; Vivek Patil, biosystems engineering; Mohammadjafar Hashemi, chemical engineering; Fanqi Qin, civil engineering; Hairuo Xu, computer science and software engineering; Michael Bolt, electrical and computer engineering; Christy Evans, industrial and systems engineering; Ralf Fischer, materials engineering; and Chris Gomes, mechanical engineering.

Auburn Engineering | 11

Happenings

Aerospace engineering doctoral candidate awarded Department of Defense fellowship Yi Wang

Biosystems engineering professor receives $3 million NASA grant Yi Wang, assistant professor in biosystems engineering, is a co-PI on a new $3 million NASA-MIRO grant.

The goal of the grant is to establish a Center for High-Pressure Combustion in Microgravity that includes conducting research, training students and providing professional development for faculty in this research area.

Wang’s contribution will be to produce n-butanol from biomass hydrolysates using the metabolically Clostridium strain that he developed in his lab.

“The broader impacts of this work include that influence of highpressure environments on liquidfuel combustion developed has the potential to lead to advanced engine designs with increased engine efficiency and reduced carbon emissions,” Wang said.

The work will also have a far-reaching impact on education in attracting students to pursue careers in science and engineering.

“This work will provide graduate students with opportunities to discover new knowledge and explore practical applications, as well as opportunities for undergraduate students to conduct independent research early on in their careers,” he said.

12 | Auburn Engineering

Alexander Davis, a doctoral candidate in aerospace engineering, was recently awarded a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship sponsored by the Department of Defense.

Prior to attending Auburn, he earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from Samford University in 2017. He Alexander Davis is currently working on developing a moving window molecular dynamics framework to understand shock wave interaction at microstructural features such as grain boundaries.

In an effort to increase the number of U.S. citizens and nationals trained in science and engineering disciplines of military importance, the Department of Defense offers these fellowships to individuals who have demonstrated the ability and special aptitude for advanced training in science and engineering.

The NSDEG’s three-year fellowship allows all recipients to attend whichever U.S. institution they choose, paying for full tuition and all mandatory fees.

According to NSDEG’s website, nearly 3,400 fellowships have been awarded since the program’s inception in 1989.

McCrary Institute partners with Alabama National Guard for cyber training

The McCrary Institute has collaborated with the Alabama National Guard

Auburn University, through its Auburn Cyber Research Center and McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security, is collaborating with the Alabama National Guard Defensive Cyber Operation Element (DCO-E) in Montgomery, Alabama, to provide training to DCO-E cyber analysts on Auburn’s campus.

In this effort, Auburn cyber researchers will provide subject matter expertise and technical support to the DCO-E through cyber analyst training, cyber range exercises and development of strategies to defend critical infrastructure across the state of Alabama. Jason Cuneo, chief technologist of the Auburn Cyber Research Center, will lead the training. The DCO-E analysts will learn on Auburn’s cyber range, a reconfigurable virtual environment used for simulated training and cybersecurity development. The training will also include system administration, security configurations, network traffic analysis, defense tools and techniques and cyber exercise preparation.

Happenings

Development officer facilitates unprecedented number of gift commitments in a year

Assistant professor Li Chen (left) and Ye Wang (right)

Doctoral student applies deep learning to biomedical data for Google Summer of Code project Auburn Engineering doctoral student Ye Wang was chosen to participate in the Google Summer of Code, a global program that allows students to immerse themselves in open-source software development.

Wang worked alongside two mentors on a software project titled “Tree-regularized convolutional Neural Network (tCNN) for microbiome-based prediction.”

Wang’s research focuses on deep learning, a subset of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and its application in biomedical data, particularly for large-scale omics data and population-based epidemiological data.

With the development and decreasing cost of nextgeneration sequencing technologies, the study of the human microbiome has become a growing research field as it can be applied to large clinical applications such as drug response predictions, patient stratification and disease diagnosis. Wang’s summer project aimed to improve this field and bolster his doctoral research in hopes of being published in a future conference.

Since its inception in 2005, the Google Summer of Code program has brought together more than 14,000 student participants with 24,000 mentors from more than 118 countries.

Visit Auburn Engineering online at

eng.auburn.edu/ginning

for a podcast featuring David Mattox

A member of the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering development team, major gift officer David Mattox, ’05 marketing and ’08 MBA, worked with donors to help facilitate 43 committed proposals. The last time David Mattox a development officer cultivated connections resulting in more than 40 gifts was in 2014 by Carole Ann Fowler, who served as a development officer for the Raymond J. Harbert College of Business at the time.

Relationship-based philanthropy means matching an individual’s or corporation’s interests and charitable investments to an area of need within the university.

Which makes Mattox’s accomplishment that much more meaningful.

“I didn’t think I was going to work on more than 40 gifts this year,” Mattox said. “But several gifts came in all at once as a result of ExxonMobil’s matching gift program.”

The ExxonMobil matching program – a partnership allowing alumni and friends of the college to enhance their contribution through ExxonMobil’s generosity – solidified Mattox’s 2019 results.

“David’s accomplishment is notable,” said Derek Dictson, senior director of engineering development, “especially because the donors he is able to work with and assist in fulfilling their charitable goals highlights the outpouring of support the college receives from dedicated alumni, faculty and friends.”

In addition to his career in philanthropy, Mattox has displayed a personal commitment to the College of Engineering. In 2016, he and his wife Stephanie Mattox established an annual scholarship for engineering students.

Auburn Engineering | 13

It’s Here

The Brown-Kopel Center opened in August, and the building is already changing the game for our students

BY AUSTIN PHILLIPS

Features

Students take a study break outside on one of the top floor terraces.

In addition to closed study spaces, the top floor also includes large open study spaces.

The Larry and Mary Montgomery Design Studio provides students cluster spaces to work, fully equipped with computers.

The innovation laboratory on the ground floor is one of the largest makerspaces in the country.

T

he Samuel Ginn College of Engineering opened its doors and hosted a dedication ceremony in September to celebrate the $44 million Brown-Kopel Engineering Student Achievement Center.

Construction of the center was made possible thanks to a $30 million gift from John, ’57 chemical engineering, and Rosemary Brown, ’57 chemistry, which was announced as part of an overall $57 million gift — the largest in university history — in April 2015 at the Because This is Auburn campaign kickoff event. Site preparation for the project began in December 2016 with the demolition of the Engineering Shops and L Building. This project completes the third phase of more than $85 million in new construction and renovations for the College of Engineering.

In addition to the Browns’ gift, more than 50 other alumni have donated $17 million toward the project.

16 | Auburn Engineering

These gifts supplemented cost of construction, with the remaining funds dedicated toward endowing programming in the facility.

Prior to the ceremony, the college dedicated the Carol Ann Gavin Garden, which connects the Brown-Kopel Center with the newly renovated Gavin Engineering Research Laboratory. This rooftop garden — the largest in Alabama — covers 44,000 square feet of build out space for the wind tunnel laboratory and future instructional use. The garden was made possible through a $2.5 million gift from Charles Gavin, ’59 textile management, in honor of his late wife.

“The Browns’ transformational gift has changed the game for our students and college,” said Christopher B. Roberts, dean of engineering. “John and Rosemary’s investment will allow us to recruit, reward and retain our students in ways we only imagined. Our vision has been to provide the best student-centered engineering

Features

The Brown-Kopel Center includes two 100-seat classrooms on the top floor and one 50-seat classroom on the ground floor.

educational experience in America, and this facility is a fulfillment to making that vision a reality. We are forever grateful for the Browns’ generosity and commitment to the College of Engineering and to our future Auburn engineers.�

Located in the heart of campus, the Brown-Kopel Center specifically addresses students’ professional and academic needs, providing one of the most comprehensive, active-learning environments in the country.

The center also creates greater opportunities for collaboration among faculty members and fellow students, cultivating a sense of home within the engineering campus.

Designed to serve students from all engineering disciplines, the facility incorporates high-contact initiatives through student recruitment, scholarships, Visit Auburn Engineering online at

eng.auburn.edu/magazine for video and photos of this story

curriculum advising, tutoring, career development, corporate relations, international experiences and more.

The ground floor of the building includes an innovation center, which consists of student maker spaces, laboratories, shops and project incubators; a design studio, large and small group study rooms, flexible classrooms, computer labs and more, while also serving as the home for engineering student organizations. The main floor houses suites for student recruitment, scholarships, tutoring, academic advising, career development and corporate relations center, the Engineering Academic Excellence Program and offices for support staff.

The third floor incorporates ample, spacious student study areas with large-group and small-group study rooms, along with boardrooms, conference rooms and a Grand Hall.

Auburn Engineering | 17

Recruiting Advantage The Office of Recruiting and Scholarships now has a showpiece for potential students

BY JEREMY HENDERSON

Features

The Office of Recruiting and Scholarships has facilitated campus tours for nearly 5,500 prospective students and guests over the past year.

J

essica Taylor, ’09 polymer and fiber engineering, loves her new office. It’s beautiful. It’s spacious. And not only has it made her job as director of Recruiting and Scholarships for the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering easier, in a certain sense it’s practically doing it for her.

“This building just makes you want to come back for more,” Taylor said. “When prospective students come and visit the Brown-Kopel Engineering Student Achievement Center with their parents, they get to see a whole building dedicated to their student’s success here at Auburn University. When families get to see the investment that the college is making in their students’ futures, that makes a difference.”

Over the past year, in their old location in Shelby Center, Taylor’s team, which includes Jenny Sconyers, Sydney Riley and Avalon Meacham, has facilitated engineering campus tours for nearly 5,500 prospective students and guests — a 63 percent increase in just over 20 | Auburn Engineering

five years. Add to that number several thousand people who have taken advantage of the office’s popular daily information sessions and group visits in the same time frame, and it’s easy to see why Taylor deems the additional space and functionality afforded by the $44 million showpiece so invaluable.

“It has just really allowed us to scale up our activities and offerings,” she said. “We always try our best to provide that excellent customer service, and we get to do that in this state-of-the-art facility.”

Taylor said the new space will also revolutionize the outreach programs key to developing what she calls “the pipeline for future Auburn engineers.”

“We start with K-12 outreach to expose students to the field of engineering with hands-on demonstrations, summer camps, robotics competition, after-school programs in addition to many other programs. When these students start hitting that college selection process in high school, that’s when we really start recruiting

Features

During the Junior Tigers Engineering Camp, rising 10th- and 11th-grade students explore different engineering majors while participating in hands-on activities.

them hard,” Taylor said. “We use outreach and scholarships so that we can shape each class into a really great group of incoming students every year.”

According to the surveys, it’s working.

“Before each visit, we ask prospective students to rate their opinion of Auburn Engineering in relation to other schools they’re considering,” Taylor said. “72.4 percent say that Auburn is their first choice, or among their top choices. But after they visit, that goes up to 92.9 percent.”

Those are great numbers, obviously. But once she’s able to factor in the “Brown-Kopel effect,” Taylor expects them to be even greater.

“It’s a really exciting time to be at Auburn,” Taylor said. “What we are now able to do because of the investment our donors have made and continue to make in our current and future engineering students’ lives is amazing.”

Visit Auburn Engineering online at

eng.auburn.edu/magazine for video and photos of this story

The Samuel Ginn College of Engineering provides unique opportunities for rising 12th-grade students interested in engineering during its summer Senior Tigers Engineering Camp.

Auburn Engineering | 21

Elevating Advising

The new home for advising is a game-changer for keeping our students on the right path

BY CHRIS ANTHONY

Features Jane Lamb is coordinator of the Engineering Peer Advisor Program.

F

or students experiencing difficulties, an academic advisor is often one of the first people they seek out for advice.

But it can be hard to vocalize those concerns in a crowded office space teeming with other students and student services staff.

That was a challenge in the former Engineering Student Services suite located in the Shelby Center.

“When students experience depression or academic difficulties, you don’t want a bunch of people overhearing that,” said Janet Moore, director of advising in the College of Engineering. “The advisors were very clustered in

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“The more doors you put between students and the services they need, the less likely they are to seek out those services. Being centrally located where the students already are has greatly improved our visibility.”

– Janet Moore, director of

advising

the Shelby Center, which made it difficult.”

“The biggest change, though, is access and visibility,” Moore said.

Since the move to the Brown-Kopel Engineering Student Achievement Center, the college is now able to offer a truly private and comfortable advising experience for students.

“The more doors you put between students and the services they need, the less likely they are to seek out those services. Being centrally located where the students already

Features A DV I S I N G B Y T H E N U M B E R S

professional advisors

centrally located advisors

faculty advisors departmental advisors peer advisors are has greatly improved our visibility.”

appointment with the professional advising staff.

That enhanced visibility is already paying dividends for the advising staff. The college’s no-show rate for advising appointments was already low at 7% in the 2018-19 academic year. However, that has now dropped to just 2% for the 2019-20 year as of November.

In the past, there was no dedicated space for peer advising sessions.

Students had to bring their own laptops and search for an empty space where they could meet, often in a noisy public area with heavy foot traffic. Brown-Kopel has changed that, allowing students a private space to talk with their peer advisors.

“Location is the only thing I can attribute that to,” Moore said.

The new Brown-Kopel Center has also elevated the college’s robust peer advising program, which is managed by academic advisor Jane Lamb. All pre-engineering students in the college meet with a trained peer advisor prior to their

“Peer advising has been a big hit with our students,” Moore said.

“They tend to enjoy it because your professional advisor is not necessarily someone who has gone through the engineering classes they are taking. Peer advising helps students navigate technology like

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DegreeWorks and get peer feedback on their course load. Those aren’t conversations you would normally have with your professional advisor.”

Beyond elevating the services offered to students, Moore feels the new Brown-Kopel Center’s central location also offers opportunities for increased collaboration between departments, such as developing new partnerships between Engineering Student Services and the Office of Career Development and Corporate Relations.

“This is such an exciting time for Student Services because of BrownKopel,” Moore said. “The space has been very positive for both the students and the staff.”

Auburn Engineering | 25

Transcendent Tutoring With added space in Brown-Kopel, Tutoring Center grows by leaps and bounds

BY CHRIS ANTHONY

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Features

The new Engineering Tutoring Center room has more than 1,300 square feet of space.

“When we were located in the Shelby Center, no one really knew where the Tutoring Center was. … Now that we’re in Brown-Kopel, the students see us.”

– Kathy Friedenreich, Tutoring Center manager

Before students begin to file into the Engineering Tutoring Center on a recent fall day, Kathy Friedenreich does a quick scan of the room.

The work stations are neatly organized. The glass white boards and tables – perfect for diagramming engineering equations – have been wiped clean of the previous day’s work. The center is immaculate.

Students soon begin to arrive for the day’s tutoring sessions, ranging from individual, drop-in and group appointments. And ever since the BrownKopel Center opened its doors in August, students have been arriving to the Tutoring Center in record numbers.

“When we were located in the Shelby Center, no one really knew where the Tutoring Center was,” said Friedenreich, an academic counselor for the college and manager of the Tutoring Center. “Students had to intentionally seek us out before. Now that we’re in Brown-Kopel, the students see us. We are where the students are now.”

In addition to its new location in the heart of the engineering campus, the Tutoring Center has also dramatically expanded its space. The 1,303-square-foot room it now occupies dwarfs its previous location in the Shelby Center, which measured in at 523 square feet.

The added space allows Friedenreich’s team, which has expanded from 12 to 40 tutors this year, to better serve its clients.

28 | Auburn Engineering

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Students can diagram engineering problems directly on glass white boards and tables.

“In Shelby, we were limited to running four tutoring sessions per hour,” she said. “We can easily accommodate seven to 10 students per hour now.”

The students and peer tutors are very happy with the flexibility of the new space, Friedenreich said. The rolling white boards can be moved to divide the room into pods and tailor it for a particular tutoring session.

The center can accommodate various learning styles by utilizing nearby small study rooms in place of the large tutoring room, if needed.

Students can also take advantage of group tutoring services.

Distinct Clients Spring 2019 semester • Appointment based: 400 clients (1,484 sessions) • Drop-in: 41 clients (93 sessions) • Total: 441 distinct clients for the term (1,577 sessions)

The Tutoring Center offers services for more than 65 courses, primarily in high-demand subjects in engineering, calculus and physics.

Distinct Clients Fall 2019 semester (as of Oct. 25)

With the increased usage and demand for tutoring services within the college, Friedenreich is also working to change the perception of tutoring among engineering students, who often don’t like to ask for help.

• Appointment based: 516 clients (1,534 sessions)

“We are attempting to change the culture by offering positive reinforcement for everyone who comes in,” she said.

“Even something as simple as saying, ‘We are glad you are here and seeking help.’ We train our tutors to encourage students to embrace asking for help with their coursework.”

• Drop-in: 105 clients (161 sessions) • Total: 621 distinct clients for the term (1,695 sessions)

Auburn Engineering | 29

Early Excellence The Engineering Academic Excellence Program sets up underrepresented students for success

BY JEREMY HENDERSON

Features

G

et Cordelia Brown talking about how her office’s new location has impacted its mission, and you’ll hear one word over and over: Transform.

“It has really transformed what we do and what our students can do,” Brown said.

Brown serves as director of the Engineering Academic Excellence Program (AEP), an academic and professional development support program launched in 1996 that enhances the recruitment and retention of underrepresented students in the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering through a wide range of programs and activities.

AEP supports participants from pre-college through graduation by facilitating expanded academic preparation, professional readiness and career path exploration in a community oriented learning environment.

In September, that environment exploded in size.

AEP was among the college’s student support services that relocated to the new $44 million Brown-Kopel Engineering Student Achievement Center, a move that Brown says has amplified the ability of AEP participants to take advantage of the program in ways its old home in Shelby Center simply didn’t allow.

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AEP participants make use of spacious study spaces in the Brown-Kopel Center.

“It has really transformed what we do and what our students can do.”

– Cordelia Brown, AEP director “AEP gives students an opportunity to create a community within engineering and engage with one another as they engage in other classes,” Brown said. “The Brown-Kopel Engineering Student Achievement Center has given them the space to actually do it. It’s really transformed what they can do as they’re working on teams. It’s given us a platform to engage so many more students. Sometimes it allows us to serve as many as 400 students in any given space.”

But Brown credits the facility’s design as one of its major advantages just as much as its enormous size.

“With all of the clear glass, you can see the students coming by,” she said. “It gives the feeling of open doors and transparency that allows me to stop what I’m doing if need be and take care of a student’s need right in the moment. Again, it’s really just transformed all of the opportunities we want to provide.”

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AEP facilitates expanded academic preparation and professional readiness.

Auburn Engineering | 33

Opening New Doors Students find plentiful career pathways in Brown-Kopel Center

BY CHRIS ANTHONY

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Auburn Engineering | 35

Features

Jessica Bowers (right) is manager of career development and coaching for the College of Engineering.

W

hile many departments had outgrown their previous space before moving into the Brown-Kopel Engineering Student Achievement Center, the Office of Career Development and Corporate Relations is still growing into its space.

Established in 2018, CDCR seeks to equip students to discover, develop and launch purposeful careers by providing tailored services and resources as well as building valuable industry partnerships.

Jessica Bowers, manager of career development and coaching, said the office encourages students to come early and come often during their time in college.

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“You can begin designing your engineering career during your first year at Auburn,” she said. “To accomplish our team’s mission, we offer resources and one-on-one or group meetings with students that facilitate the process of discovering their unique interests, building career materials, testing out career prototypes and securing their first-destination after Auburn.

These services include discussion of traditional topics such as preparing a resume, networking and identifying search strategies for an internship or full-time position.”

engage with students. In addition, CDCR collaborated with the chambers of commerce and economic development teams in industry hubs within the state to showcase industry opportunities in particular areas such as Huntsville and Auburn-Opelika. It has also partnered with engineering departments on discipline-specific programming such as the recent Civil and Biosystems Engineering Career Fair.

Over the past year, CDCR has worked to initiate, develop and deepen relationships with alumni and companies to expand the Auburn Engineering network to provide a wide array of opportunities for companies to

“Brown-Kopel has made a tremendous difference in the ability to offer access for companies to interact with students in a meaningful way. Students are comfortable in the building, as it has become home to them this fall,

All of these events have been held in the Brown-Kopel Center.

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CDCR has seen more students this year in half the time.

August 2018 to May 2019 201 student meetings 157 unique students June 2019 to October 2019 209 student meetings 156 unique students

Students interact with recruiters at the Lockheed Martin Industry Day.

“Students are comfortable in the building, as it has become home to them this fall, and employers have been impressed with its tangible representation of the college’s commitment to a student-centered engineering education.”

– Apryl Mullins, CDCR assistant director and employers have been impressed with its tangible representation of the college’s commitment to a student-centered engineering education,” said Apryl Mullins, assistant director of corporate relations.

One such example is the abundant interview rooms built into the CDCR suite in the Brown-Kopel Center. Companies can use the space to conduct interviews for co-ops, internships and full-time

positions right in the center of the engineering campus. Students are also able to utilize these rooms as a quiet space for phone or video interviews, as well as a place to practice their interviewing skills with skilled interviewers such as professional staff and alumni.

In September, CDCR worked with the Engineering Young Alumni Council to host a mock interview event, resulting in 83 mock interviews and 50 resume reviews

for students in their freshman year through graduate programs.

Like many of the college’s other departments, CDCR has found the newfound proximity to students has paid off.

“We have already exceeded the number of one-on-one student meetings we held last year between September and May. In fact, we held that amount and more between August and October of this year,” Bowers said.

Auburn Engineering | 37

An Oasis for All

Carol Ann’s Garden is now one of the most beautiful areas on campus

BY AUSTIN PHILLIPS

Features

Embodying what it means to welcome people into the Auburn Family, Carol Ann Gavin never met a stranger.

A

dedicated mother, wife and friend, Carol Ann’s generous nature and kindness always made everyone she knew feel at home. In honor of her memory, Charles Gavin, ’59 textile management, family and friends generously established the Carol Ann Gavin Garden in the space between the Carol Ann and Charles E. Gavin III Engineering Research Laboratory and the Brown-Kopel Engineering Student Achievement Center.

This rooftop garden — the largest in Alabama — covers 44,000 square feet of instructional spaces, including the wind tunnel laboratory.

It serves as a reminder of the balance engineering students must strike between work, hard work, and the ways in which they will cultivate sympathy, helpfulness and bring happiness for all.

The open area also allows easy access to and from the Brown-Kopel Center and Gavin Laboratory, while also providing students, faculty and staff a tranquil spot to study, eat lunch or relax right in the heart of the engineering campus.

The garden, which is affectionately known as Carol Ann’s Garden, includes a large mixed French parterre and English knot garden as a tribute to Carol Ann’s love for flowers and gardening. The parterre/knot was designed by Gavin family friend, Jamey Newman. The idea for the space blossomed from Charles and Carol Ann’s decision to renovate the former

40 | Auburn Engineering

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Textile Building, now known as the Carol Ann and Charles E. Gavin III Engineering Research Laboratory.

Their generosity to the university catalyzed the renovations and new construction on the engineering campus with the demolition of the L Building and Engineering Shops, paving the way for the BrownKopel Center.

“Charles and the entire Gavin family, by making the Gavin Laboratory renovation possible and turning this once dilapidated space into an oasis, you’ve impacted future Auburn engineers for generations to come,” said Christopher B. Roberts, dean of engineering. “Because of your vision, because of your belief in Auburn, and your love for it, this is all possible.”

Throughout her lifetime, Carol Ann was a dedicated supporter of Auburn University and the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering. Charles and Carol Ann established numerous scholarships, unwavering in their dedication to engineering education and work force development. A major proponent of Auburn basketball, Carol Ann and Charles named the team conference room in her honor.

Charles has also established an endowed professorship in chemical engineering, an endowed doctoral fellowship program and supported many other lifechanging initiatives across campus.

Through the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists Foundation, Charles has established numerous transformational scholarships, fellowships and professorships for Auburn and other major universities. The Gavins’ generous philanthropy extends to other institutions and organizations, including Harvest Outreach, the Hamilton Medical Center, RossWoods Adult Day Services and the Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

It is through the generosity of Charles, the Gavin family and friends that the Carol Ann Gavin Garden has come to fruition.

It is the hope of both Charles Gavin and the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering that as students cross between buildings within the engineering complex, they will stop for a minute among the verdant greens and find a place of solace in the midst of their arduous studies.

Auburn Engineering | 41

Dedicated Donors

More than 50 alumni and friends have suppor ted the Brown-Kopel Center construction and programming

BY LAUREN WINTON

Features

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onstruction of the Brown-Kopel Center was made possible thanks to a $30 million gift from John and Rosemary Brown, which was announced as part of an overall $57 million gift — the largest in university history — in April 2015 at the Because This is Auburn campaign kickoff event. Site preparation for the project began in December 2016 with the demolition of the Engineering Shops and L Building. This project completes the third phase of more than $85 million in

Ginger Woltosz and Walt Woltosz, ’69 and ’77 aerospace engineering

Joan Corson and Brad Corson, ’83 chemical engineering

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new construction and renovations for the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering.

In addition to the Browns’ gift, more than 50 other alumni have donated $17 million toward the project.

These gifts supplemented cost of construction, with the remaining funds dedicated toward endowing programming in the facility. Spaces within the facility were named in honor of donors who supported the project, including:

Paula McMillan, ’65 and Jim McMillan, ’61 chemical engineering

Kimberly Kelly and Kenneth Kelly, ’90 electrical engineering

Features

Ground Floor: • Larry and Mary Montgomery Design Studio • Larry and Mary Montgomery Machine Shop • PTAC Study Area, named by Adrian and Virginia Lovell • T. Shane Goodwin and Family Study Room In Memory of Our Jett and Campbell, named by Shane and Brandi Goodwin • Shawn and Anne Cleary Digital Prototyping Laboratory • Jeff and Linda Stone Professional Engineering Organizations Suite • Torch Technologies Study Room • Regenia Sanders Study Area • Jim and Paula McMillan Study Area Main Floor: • Walt and Ginger Woltosz Grand Atrium • Vulcan Materials Corporate Conference Room • Cooper Construction Corporate Conference Room • Dynetics, Inc. Career Development and Corporate Relations Reception Area • Auburn Alumni Engineering Council Interview Suite • Anna and Jim Cooper Career Development and Corporate Relations Staff Offices • Alabama Power Company Engineering Academic Excellence Program Suite • Kenneth Kelly Engineering Academic Excellence Program Reception Area • Cindy Green and Larry Monroe Diversity in Engineering Gallery • Brad Corson and Family Tutoring and Learning Suite • William Deas Weatherford Group Study Room, named by the Weatherford family • Bill and Lana McNair Academic Advising Suite • Frank and Hope McFadden Academic Advising Reception Area • Dr. William Y. and Mrs. Rosemarie Bishop Peer Advising Room

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• Brasfield & Gorrie Recruiting and Scholarship Suite • Joe and JoAnn Cowan Recruiting and Scholarship Reception Area • Ken and Lyn Smith Recruiting and Scholarship Office Suite • Warnock Family Conference Room • Billie Carole McMillan Study Studio, named by Joe McMillan • Joseph D. and Kathy Weatherford Team Room • 100+ Women Strong Team Rooms • Hunter Alan Chambliss Team Room, named by the Weatherford family • Eldridge and Rhonda Horne Cook Team Room • Olivia Kelley Owen Team Room • American Cast Iron Pipe Company Cupola Engineering Ambassadors Office • Café 25, named by Carol Godfrey in honor of Gary Godfrey Top Floor: • Ed and Peggy Reynolds Classroom • Sal and Paula Marino Study Room • Meagher Family Study Room • Erich and Jennifer Weishaupt Study Room • Randy and Beth Chase Study Room • Steve and Wesley Cates Study Room • Solaiman-Caldwell-Aviki Study Room, named by Diaco and Angela Aviki • Lamar and Elaine Hawkins Study Room • Mike and Shelley Forte Study Room • Gary and Jo Gray Study Room Outdoor Space: • Carol Ann Gavin Garden, named by Charles Gavin, family and friends • Georgia Pacific Pavilion • Jack and Ann Waddey Pavilion • Nelda Lee Pavilion

Auburn Engineering | 45

To the Moon and Back, in 50 Years

The college’s alumni played a huge role in the moon landing, and now we’re planning to help the U.S. get back there

BY MORGAN MARTIN

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Auburn Engineering | 47

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5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, all engines running... liftoff, we have a liftoff.

T

hese words echoed around the world as Jack King, Kennedy Space Center’s chief of public information, narrated the events of July 16, 1969. Millions watched from their television screens, and others in person, as the Saturn V rocket took flight to carry Apollo 11 astronauts to the moon.

Jim Thomas and his wife-to-be Pat observed from a unique perspective as the spacecraft slowly lifted from Launch Pad 39A. He worked for seven years with Wernher von Braun’s rocket team to help give it the ability to do just that.

Both arrived at Kennedy Space Center a week before the launch of Apollo 11. Pat was there as part of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center’s Public Affairs Office, interfacing with visiting press and dignitaries at Cape Canaveral’s Convention Center. Jim was one of several engineers in the Saturn V’s Engine Program Office selected to support the launch.

Jim earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering at Auburn in June 1958, and upon graduation he began a 61-year career as a rocket propulsion engineer that is continuing to this day. Jim has been a Registered Professional Engineer in Alabama since 1965, and has received numerous awards including NASA’s Silver Snoopy, Director’s Commendation, Silver Achievement Medal and Exceptional Service Medal for his services to NASA. “When we graduated from Auburn in the ’50s we were practical, hands-on engineers, but I didn’t know I was going to work on anything after graduation because in 1958 there were basically no jobs out there,” he said.

“The economy was really bad. I had fraternity brothers who graduated in ’56 with 10 to 12 offers. In ’58, you were doing well to get one job offer.”

Though he had just graduated from Auburn, Jim already had engineering work experience under his

48 | Auburn Engineering

belt. Following high school, he had spent almost two years volunteering in the Navy during the Korean War. “I went through their electrical engineering technician’s school, so I had a good electrical engineering background,” he said. “With those couple of years on board a destroyer – the USS Rowan – learning how to keep a U.S. warship running, I had some pretty good hands-on training.”

An Auburn engineer got a hold of his resume, leading Jim to his first assignment with Thiokol Chemical Corp. in Brigham City, Utah, working to design and test the first stage of the Air Force’s Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile. A year later, he moved to Edwards Air Force Base to support Boeing Aerospace in learning how to launch the Minuteman out of a silo – a big, complex hole in the ground.

Following successful completion of the Silo Test Program, Jim was transferred to Boeing in Seattle to continue testing the Minuteman ballistic missile systems.

In 1962, soon after President John F. Kennedy made his declaration to send Americans to the moon before the end of the decade, Jim joined the Saturn V team at newly established NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, to fulfill Kennedy’s goal. He supported the development of the Saturn V’s J-2 and RL10 liquid-fuel cryogenic rocket engines. Finally, it was time for NASA to shoot for the moon with Apollo 11.

“The week of the launch I spent most of my time responding to technical questions from the visiting dignitaries in the Vehicle Assembly Building area and the adjacent press viewing site,” Jim said. “That is three miles west of Launch Pad 39A – right next to the Launch Control Center and the closest people can get to the launch for safety. Pat and I witnessed the launch from the VIP press site.”

Jim recalls watching the large launch countdown clock in front of the viewing site that could be seen by all in the area. It started counting down the launch days before lift-off.

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track of Apollo 11’s mission, tuning into NASA’s television transmissions each day. The astronauts landed on the moon on July 20, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spending 21 hours and 36 minutes on the lunar surface. Some 530 million viewers worldwide watched the lunar landing and moonwalk on their TVs, including Jim and his fellow Saturn V engineers observing intently from Huntsville.

Jim Thomas

“Apollo 11 lifted off at 9:32 a.m. on July 16, 1969.

By midnight before, there was already a large crowd at the viewing site. By daybreak, standing room was limited, and by 7 a.m., the viewing site was overflowing with dignitaries and press from all over the world.

The crowd noise was loud,” he said. “As we faced east toward Pad 39A, looking into the sun and watching the clock click off the minutes and finally get down to the 10-second mark, the crowd noise became dead silence.

“What came next was almost overpowering and not expected by most of the viewers. First, there was the pressure wave from the flow of 450 million gallons of water into the exhaust ducts to cool them from the 5,000 degree Fahrenheit exhaust flame produced by the five F-1 engines. Next was the Saturn V’s ignition pressure wave and finally, the noise from the rocket engines reaching the viewing site three miles away. It was awesome, thrilling and exciting, to say the least, to witness history being made by the United States Space Program in its mission to put humans on another body in our solar system. And, a little more astonishing was the ground literally vibrated and shook under our feet.”

Several days after the launch, Jim returned to Huntsville to resume his normal work duties, all the while thinking of the monumental event that was still in progress up in space, 238,900 miles away. The Saturn V engineers spent as much time as they could keeping

“One of the more interesting aspects of the lunar surface walks that we talked about was the amount of dust the astronauts kicked up as they walked on the lunar surface,” he said. “The lunar surface was covered with several inches of dust, and dust plays havoc with electronic components and the lunar module was full of electronic gear. The astronauts wore boots that were separate from their space suits. When each astronaut reached the top step of the ladder before stepping into the lunar module, they removed their boots and tossed them down on the lunar surface.”

On July 24, the astronauts successfully returned home, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii.

Their mission was complete, and it was on to the next.

In 1970, Jim moved off the Apollo program and onto the Space Shuttle program, where he would spend 22 years helping to design and develop the Space Shuttle Launch Vehicle. He retired from NASA in 1989; however, he has continued working as a contractor all these years. Since 2005, Jim has been focused on the Orion Crew Module’s Launch Abort System, designed to safely remove the crew module from NASA’s Space Launch System rocket in the event of a failure.

On July 16, 2019, the Thomases again stood together, this time not looking at a countdown clock or up at the sky, but at the celebration all around them in downtown Huntsville. Once again, the citizens of Huntsville and Madison County were dancing in the streets around the courthouse square as they did in 1969.

“Standing at the cape, to celebrating again 50 years later, it kind of puts a big lump in your throat when you think about it, and all the successes we had with the Apollo program just cannot be overstated,” he said.

Auburn Engineering | 49

One Giant Leap for Rocketry Jim Odom, ’55 mechanical engineering, was a pioneer for the Apollo program

BY CHRIS ANTHONY

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aucous celebrations on Earth were fading into the early morning hours of July 21, 1969, as Jim Odom stepped outside his Decatur home and cast his eyes toward Earth’s closest neighbor – the moon.

Like millions of other Americans, Odom had watched with rapt attention as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin of the Apollo 11 mission made “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” on the lunar surface earlier in the evening.

Now, in the silence of the muggy Decatur evening, Odom had a moment to reflect on the achievement. As chief of the engineering and test operations branch for the second stage of the Saturn V launch vehicle, Odom had spent the majority of his career to that point with the singular objective of putting man on the moon.

“Looking at the moon and knowing that had happened was probably one of the most humbling experiences that I can ever recall,” Odom said. “It was not only a sense of personal satisfaction, but also a sense of national pride.”

Odom’s career path to that historymaking mission was serendipitous.

After graduating from Auburn ­— then known as Alabama Polytechnic Institute — with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1955, Odom joined Chemstrand Corp.

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in Decatur, Alabama, and had no ambitions of ever working in the public sector.

However, he was drafted into the Army in 1956, joining the U.S. Army’s rocket research and development team at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville. During those years, he worked on the groundbreaking Redstone and Jupiter rocket programs.

In 1959, months prior to the formal establishment of the Marshall Space Flight Center, Odom’s team became part of NASA, working on the development of earth satellites and unmanned space probes. And then, in 1961, President John F. Kennedy signaled his intent to put men on the moon by the end of the decade.

It was an ambitious program, and the men and women of NASA knew it from the jump.

“We were all almost totally consumed by it for those years that we worked on it because it was a very aggressive program and a very difficult one,” Odom said.

“We were familiar with launch vehicles because we had been doing that for a few years, but nothing of this size and this magnitude.”

The Saturn V launch vehicle was divided into three stages. Odom led the engineering and test office for the second stage, which was a 33-foot diameter liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen rocket with five engines.

“It was an engineering challenge from day one,” Odom said.

All of the stages typically would have five ground test vehicles.

NASA would build a battleship, a heavy-duty rocket stage used to test configuration and integration

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A career snapshot Jim Odom is one of Auburn’s most distinguished graduates in the space industry.

1963: Appointed chief of engineering and test operations for the second stage of the Saturn V 1972: Named manager of the external tank project in the Shuttle Projects Office 1982: Became deputy manager for production and logistics in the Shuttle Projects Office 1983: Appointed manager of the Hubble Space Telescope Office 1986: Named director of the science and engineering directorate at NASA Marshall 1988: Became NASA’s associate administrator for the International Space Station 1990: Retired from NASA and appointed president and CEO of Applied Research Inc. of a launch vehicle, for propulsion testing. This would include a structural test article, a dynamic test article and an all-systems test article.

“The other two stage programs had very few ground failures,” Odom said. “On stage two, we lost virtually all of our ground test stages before we were finished with them. From an engineering standpoint and from a test standpoint, we were on the critical path literally every month for the entire extent of the design and development period of the vehicle.”

But after every failure, Odom’s team would go back and learn from it and then realign the program accordingly.

In these years, Odom also had the opportunity to learn from legendary aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun, the first director of NASA Marshall and the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle.

Having the opportunity to travel with von Braun gave Odom a

glimpse into the German engineer’s mindset that few had.

Space Telescope Project, among other postings.

Von Braun’s exemplary leadership instilled Odom with confidence and attention to detail.

When Odom looks back on his career, he marvels at the fact that for having worked in 12 positions over a 60-year career, he only ever interviewed for one – his first job at Chemstrand Corp. Because of his previous experience and record, he was always asked to manage the next big project.

“When I would have a hardware failure, he never criticized me. And this is true for everybody that was in roles like mine,” Odom said. “We were never criticized by him. He only wanted to know two things.

When we had a failure, he asked, ‘Do you know why it failed and do you know what you’re going to do to fix it or to work around it?’”

In 1973, Odom received the NASA Exceptional Service Medal for his leadership of the design, development, testing and launch support of the Saturn V launch vehicle second stage. The Saturn V project was just the beginning for Odom’s career at NASA. He would go on to manage the external tank project for the Space Shuttle, the science and engineering directorate for NASA Marshall and the Hubble

And Odom attributes that in part to the engineering education he received at Auburn.

“Every one of those jobs was a big step up for me,” Odom said. “Each one of them were big key jobs, and I’m sure I went into each one of them with some intimidation.

But when I look back now, there was not one position that I was not prepared for from an engineering standpoint. I was extremely fortunate and extremely blessed with the education and experience that I received at Auburn. It was absolutely first-class.”

Auburn Engineering | 53

The War Eagle Almost Landed

C.C. Williams, ’54 mechanical engineering, almost made “War Eagle” the first words said on the moon

BY JEREMY HENDERSON

Features Cliff Williams (top row, far right), ’54 mechanical engineering, was among the 14 men selected for NASA’s third astronaut class.

I

t would be perfect. The Eagle would land. The “War Eagle” would be heard. It wasn’t a joke. It was a promise. And Cliff “C.C.” Williams’ friends believed him. After all, the lunar module that the 1954 Auburn mechanical engineering graduate spent his days perfecting had been dubbed the Eagle, and he was still a huge football fan. He listened to or watched every game he could. He kept up.

When he moved to Houston in the fall of 1963, he quickly got involved in the city’s alumni club, which was more than thrilled to count a famous astronaut in its ranks.

Cliff Williams, ’54 mechanical engineering, wanted to be the first man to walk on the moon.

There may have been 13 men named to NASA’s third astronaut class, Buzz Aldrin among them, but Williams got the most press. Reporters loved him.

He was tall, handsome, and he made for easy copy. For the moment, he was America’s only space-bound bachelor, a condition he remedied the following summer by marrying a Cypress Garden Aquamaid. News of the wedding made the cover of the New York Daily News.

But Williams was after bigger headlines.

In 1966, after being tapped as the backup pilot for Gemini 10, his work became almost entirely devoted to preparing for Apollo 11, the mission

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that would take three astronauts to the moon and place two of them on the surface.

Williams, a Marine Corps major, hoped he would be one of them, and he made no bones about it, not in front of friends, not in front of cameras — he wanted to be first.

That was the detail that made the lede in the Oct. 6, 1967, Associated Press story on how Williams’ wish would never come true.

“An American astronaut who said he wanted to be first on the moon and specialized in the craft that will make the trip was killed Thursday when his T-38 jet trainer plowed into a hilltop near the Florida-Georgia border.”

At the time of his death, Williams, 35, was detouring to Mobile to visit his ailing father after attending a NASA meeting about the lunar module at Cape Canaveral.

His jet created a 15-foot crater in the heavily wooded

area, but dove so straight to the ground it managed to completely avoid the pine trees. Loss of oxygen was blamed.

News of the tragedy made headlines across the country.

“C.C. was like everyone else in the program,” Williams’ fellow Auburn graduate and fellow astronaut Ken Mattingly, ’58 aerospace engineering, told The Auburn Plainsman after Williams’ death. “It was his entire life.

He would have worked as hard to see someone else go to the moon as to make the journey himself.”

But no one would have had a better opening line, according to Volume 113 - Part 21 of the October 1967 Congressional Record.

“If Marine Corps Major Clifton C. Williams Jr. had been the first astronaut to land on the moon, the first human words ever spoken there would have been ‘War Eagle,’” the record reads.

Auburn Engineering | 57

Road Back to the Moon Goes Through Auburn Auburn Engineering is playing a vital role in getting the U.S. back to the moon... and beyond

BY JEREMY HENDERSON

Features Nima Shamsaei, Philpott-WestPoint Stevens Distinguished Associate Professor and director of Auburn University’s National Center for Additive Manufacturing Excellence (NCAME).

I

n March, NASA awarded Auburn University’s National Center for Additive Manufacturing Excellence (NCAME) a $5.2 million contract for work on the Rapid Analysis and Manufacturing Propulsion Technology project, or RAMPT.

It was just the latest in a growing list of AM industry headlines testifying to Auburn’s quickly established status as an international hub for additive manufacturing.

“NCAME currently has over 70 partners,” said NCAME director Nima Shamsaei, distinguished associate professor in mechanical engineering, and principal investigator for RAMPT. “We’re going after funding opportunities to help the industry and the government in faster adoption of this emerging technology.”

NASA, which partnered with the university to establish NCAME in 2017, needs to adopt it faster than most.

Forget 2028, Vice President Mike Pence said during his March 26 Huntsville speech at the fifth meeting of the National Space Council — America would return to the moon within five years, not nine. It wasn’t a prediction. It was an order.

“For more than 60 years, Huntsville, Alabama, has

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built the finest rocket propulsion systems in the world,” Pence said. “And we want to ensure it remains that way for the next 60 years.”

Enter NCAME, which through RAMPT is working on evolving light-weight, large-scale 3-D printing techniques for the development and manufacturing of regeneratively-cooled thrust chamber assemblies for the liquid rocket engines necessary not only to return Americans to the moon, but to put the U.S. in the pole position for the race to Mars.

“We believe that when we land on the moon in 2024, our lander will be powered by an additively manufactured engine nozzle designed and developed right here in Alabama,” Mike Ogles, director of NASA programs in the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, told NASA brass and congressional staffers in a June meeting.

Ogles also serves as project manager for RAMPT “In order to meet the Vice President’s expectations, we need to further develop key technologies such as additive manufacturing, and what NCAME will be doing on the RAMPT project will help us develop the next generation of liquid rocket engines,” Ogles said.

“The key to be able to get to the moon and then to Mars is how much payload the rocket can take. You Visit Auburn Engineering online at

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Features

Mike Ogles, director of NASA programs in the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, talks with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine at the 2019 NASA Technology Day on the Hill. Photo: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani.

Inside the National Center for Additive Manufacturing Excellence located in Auburn’s Gavin Engineering Research Laboratory.

Additive manufacturing will revolutionize rocket engine production.

have to make the engine as light as possible, and with additive manufacturing techniques we can design rocket engines that have higher performance with a lower weight.”

But Paul McConnaughey, deputy director of Marshall Space Flight Center, is quick to point out that NCAME’s research will improve more than just space travel.

“This partnership with Auburn University and industry will help develop improvements for liquid rocket engines, as well as contribute to commercial opportunities,” McConnaughey said. “The technologies developed by this team will be made available widely to the private sector, offering more companies the opportunity to use these advanced manufacturing techniques.”

For now, though, the primary objective isn’t the private sector — it’s the solar system.

“When we look back in five years, we’ll be able to say that Auburn played a role in taking us back to the moon and putting us on Mars,” Ogles said.

If his recent conversation with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine is any indication, others will be saying it, too. In June, Ogles represented RAMPT at the NASA Technology Day on the Hill, a fuel nozzle manufactured through direct energy deposition in tow.

Bridenstine introduced himself, picked up the nozzle and listened to Ogles’ updates on NCAME’s research.

Then he put the nozzle down and looked at Ogles.

“War Eagle,” he said.

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Touchdown, Auburn (Engineering) A mechanical engineering professor has helped football players return to the field through 3-D printing

BY JEREMY HENDERSON

Features

M

ichael Zabala, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, will never forget scoring his first touchdown. It was Sept. 21, 2019, and he was in his living room recliner. The game had just started.

Auburn’s Anthony Schwartz took the reverse all the way — 57-yards.

Zabala’s two little girls shouted.

His wife hugged him. His phone vibrated with congratulations, not just from his students in the biomechanics group text, but from Dr. Michael Goodlett, the team physician, there on the Auburn sideline in College Station.

“AU ENGINEERING!!!”

It was awesome. But when star receiver Seth Williams caught a touchdown pass early in the third quarter, shaking off a goal line hit to his injured left shoulder as if he hadn’t even felt it — that’s when it felt official: Zabala’s cutting-edge work in the Auburn University Biomechanical Engineering (AUBE) lab on the third floor of Wiggins Hall was now, literally, a gamechanger.

Auburn 28 - Texas A&M 20.

Zabala smiles.

“I thought, ‘that’s as close as I’ll ever get to scoring a touchdown,’” he said. “It was like Auburn biomechanics scored 14 points that day.”

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Zabala graduated from Auburn in mechanical engineering in 2007 and, after earning a master’s and doctorate from Stanford University, returned to his alma mater in 2016 to teach. He’s a huge Auburn football fan. Has been for a while. Two years ago, when filming a video promoting his work in motion capture, he could have demonstrated the technology using a student. Instead, he stuck all the sensors on Aubie, the university’s mascot.

So when duty called while he was heating up a leftover barbecue sandwich for lunch the Monday before Auburn’s season opener against Oregon, he answered.

It was his neighbor, Robbie Stewart.

Stewart laughs.

“Yeah, I definitely think he was excited to contribute to what we wanted to do.”

Stewart, Auburn football’s head athletics trainer, first got the idea in 2018, when he heard about a custom elbow brace Purdue engineers had crafted for a Boilermaker basketball standout. It sounded like some of the stuff his neighbor worked on — orthotics and the musculoskeletal study of athletes and injury prevention.

Could he involve Zabala in helping Auburn players get back on the field faster?

The possibility stayed in the back of his mind for a year. In early August, it moved to the front. Sophomore

wide receiver Anthony “Flash” Schwartz, the fastest man in college football, had broken his hand.

Stewart picked up the phone.

It wasn’t as if the trainers had never made a custom brace for a player.

They’d made plenty. But you can only do so much with molds. You can only make them so fast. You can only make them fit so well.

“He didn’t really know how we could do it,” Zabala said. “He thought it would be carbon fiber, but he just asked if we could make Schwartz a more customized brace for his hand, and if we could make it quickly.”

The timing — and the results — couldn’t have been better.

In the summer of 2018, right around the time Stewart first envisioned future collaborations with the engineer next door, Zabala and an interdisciplinary group of Auburn engineers and scientists were designated a Tier III team in Auburn University’s Presidential Awards for Interdisciplinary Research (PAIR) program and assigned nearly $1.275 million in research funding over three years.

The title of their winning proposal?

“Additive Manufacturing of Durable, Next Generation Implants and Orthotics.”

Forget plaster molds and carbon fiber, Zabala told Stewart. Thanks to a new Creaform scanner purchased for the PAIR project, Zabala could take a spool of

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Features

Auburn’s AUBE Lab produced a custom-fit brace that helped Schwartz return to the field sooner.

Auburn Tigers wide receiver Anthony Schwartz wore a 3-D printed hand brace designed by assistant mechanical engineering professor Michael Zabala’s AUBE Lab throughout the 2019 season.

polylactic acid and 3-D print Schwartz a thin, durable brace that would fit so perfectly like a glove that he could put it under his glove without anyone else on the field even knowing it was there.

Stewart said to go for it.

The next day, the AUBE lab students met Schwartz at the door.

They flipped on the scanner. Zabala observed.

He hid it well, but he was giddy.

It was almost too good to be true.

Up until that point, his team had

A 3-D rendering of Auburn wide receiver Anthony Schwartz’ injured left hand.

only scanned a horse hoof. Now, he not only had an opportunity to contribute to Auburn football, he had exactly the sort of test subject he was looking for. He couldn’t have asked for a better PAIR project case study than Anthony Schwartz ... ... except maybe for the next player to come to the lab.

Schwartz’s first brace took two days to print. For the first couple of games, he still wore a cast. Goodlett said the hand hadn’t completely healed. But as soon as Stewart and Goodlett saw the brace perform

in practice, they reached back out and asked Zabala to again wave his magic, $45,000 3-D wand, this time over Williams.

Williams finished the 2019 regular season with 891 yards on 55 catches, eight of those for touchdowns. He was Auburn’s leading receiver by a mile. Without the AUBE Lab, it would have been different story.

A week after making the amazing, game-winning touchdown grab in Auburn’s season-opener against Oregon, Williams injured his left

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Features Auburn Tigers wide receiver Seth Williams visits the Auburn University Biomechanical Engineering Lab.

shoulder against Tulane. Senior athletics trainer Kirk Nielson walked him over to Wiggins Hall the following Monday, had Williams take off his shirt, grabbed a Sharpie and drew an outline of exactly where he wanted the brace to sit on Williams’ shoulder. He decided to extend the design over Williams’ chest to protect his ribs.

The Creaform GoScan is sensitive enough to add dimension to tattoos.

Newly applied Sharpie was no problem.

“Because the scanner is so advanced, it’s able to pick up the texture of the skin as well as the volume of the skin to within .1 mm of accuracy,” said mechanical engineering doctoral student and Presidential Graduate Research

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Fellow Jake Larson. “We go through the scanned 3-D model of whatever we’re interested in and highlight the region of the body that we want to cover. The Sharpie shows up in the scanned model and gives me a reference on how we choose to create the shell that we print.”

Larson was more of an NFL guy before coming to Auburn. But ever since mid-September, all he can think about is Saturday getting here, and about getting in front of a TV. He just has to make sure he has a charger nearby.

The biomechanics group text keeps blowing up his phone with exclamation points, mostly from Dr. Zabala, but all the guys working on Project Body Armor chime in.

That’s what they call it — Body Armor. That’s the name of the folder they save all the files in. “AS Hand. SW Shoulder.”

“We joke and tell them they have to score if we scan them,” Larson said. “They both laughed and then scored the first week they wore it.”

Schwartz’s first touchdown with the brace, the 57-yard run early against Texas A&M, was the first he’d scored all season, and only the second time he’d touched the ball.

The first pass thrown his way came two weeks earlier, in the Tigers’ home opener against Tulane. He had a step on the defender. The pass was on target.

The ball bounced off his cast.

Incomplete.

Features

“I was glad he had that on, for sure,” Goodlett said. “The hit couldn’t have been more directly to the place he was hurt. If we didn’t have that one piece, we would have had two different pads and I don’t think they would have protected him nearly as well. The brace obviously worked like a charm.”

Despite his injured shoulder, star Auburn wide receiver played a significant role in Auburn’s 2019 football season thanks to the groundbreaking work of Auburn University’s Biomechanical Engineering Lab.

“The custom fit piece has been a big help,” Schwartz said.

“It’s better than having a big cast on my hand because I can actually catch the ball.”

With the brace, Schwartz’s stats soared. He finished the regular season as Auburn’s second-leading receiver with 391 yards on 35 catches.

But the ultimate test for Project Body Armor may have come in the Mississippi State game.

It was brutal.

Late in the second quarter, Bulldogs linebacker Erroll Thompson drilled the crown of his helmet into the upper left chest of an unsuspecting Seth Williams after a rare dropped pass. The crowd gasped. Williams went flying. Thompson was ejected.

Zabala was relieved.

The hit looked to be directly to the portion of the brace that Stewart and Nielson designed to extend to Williams’ ribs for extra protection. Still, Zabala expected to see Williams on the ground, clutching his shoulder. He expected to see Stewart and Goodlett jogging toward him to help him off the field.

Instead, Williams immediately popped up, seemingly no worse for the wear. Zabala was amazed.

“I texted Kirk Nielson the next day to see if Seth was okay and to check on the brace to see if it was even still intact.”

So have the others. The Monday after the Mississippi State game, Zabala got another call from the athletics complex. Another player came to be scanned. Then another.

In early October, Zabala ordered another 3-D printer to keep up with the demand. And the repeat business.

For the Oct. 19 Arkansas road game, the lab printed another, even smaller brace for Schwartz, though Zabala wasn’t sure if it Schwartz would use it. After the game, sportswriters reported that he didn’t — that Flash was back, finally playing without any protection on his hand beyond a glove. The stats seemed to back that up.

Auburn’s 51-10 win was the best game of Schwartz’s career.

He ran the ball twice for 30 yards and logged 73 yards on six catches, one for a touchdown late in the third quarter.

Williams was fine — and grateful.

That’s when Zabala’s phone began buzzing. It wasn’t the biomechanics group text. It was Goodlett again, this time from Fayetteville.

So was Goodlett.

“AU ENGINEERING!!!”

The brace was fine.

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It’s My Job

BY JEREMY HENDERSON

John Carter ’88 Mechanical Engineering CEO of Noah Basketball Why did you come to Auburn? I came to Auburn because of the engineering school. I didn’t grow up an Auburn fan, but everyone said if you’re going to study engineering, you need to go to Auburn.

Describe your Auburn experience. My time at Auburn was great. My favorite professor was Dr. David Dyer. He was just such a down-to-earth guy and had a heavy southern accent.

He was a good teach, a really smart guy. I did my senior project under him. But I really had great professors all around. Dr. Dyer just stands out. My son wound up doing his senior project under Dr. Dyer, too. That was kind of neat.

Tell us about NOAH Basketball. We help teams shoot the basketball better. We help them make better basketball decisions. We help high school teams and college teams, and we help over half of the NBA teams. We have a system that diagnoses exactly what a player needs to work on to be a better shooter. We assist professional teams in the evaluation of players in pre-draft workouts. We can evaluate their shooting prowess through our technology.

We use a model that can actually predict their upside. If you have a trajectory problem — if you’re too flat — which is pretty common, we’ve corrected that for players a thousand times.

We can predict what their percentage would be if they were shooting with a more optimal trajectory. There were some major technological breakthroughs about three years ago

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It’s My Job that just completely changed our business.

Can you talk a little about how the technology works? We use a combination of cameras and depth sensors that we install in these facilities. We can not only track the ball, but we use facial recognition to detect and tag the statistics to the correct player.

How do players respond to that kind of correction? Ten years ago, not very well. But today it’s a really good response. There’s been this massive movement toward analytics and the “Moneyball” type stuff. Also, more players trust technology now. If a computer tells them they shoot flat, they’ll believe it, whereas they might not if it’s a coach. We’ve helped a lot of players at the pro level, but I can’t talk much about their data. One player I can talk about is Anthony Tolliver of the Portland Trailblazers. We helped him dramatically improve his three-point shot. He was a little flat, but after using our technology he wound up setting the three-point shooting percentage record for the Pistons two years ago.

What’s a day in the office like?

A good day is a day in the gym. I visit a lot of NBA teams, a lot of NCAA teams. I visit a lot of our customers on a regular basis, so a day in the life might be delivering on the challenge to make their teams better. As for day in the life actually in the office? Research, development meetings, financial meetings. With a small company, you have to do everything.

John Carter (left), ’88 mechanical engineering, talks with NOAH Basketball success story Anthony Tolliver (right), a forward for the NBA’s Portland Trailblazers.

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5 Minutes With Jan Davis

BY JEREMY HENDERSON

Jan Davis is a 1977 mechanical engineering graduate who enjoyed a distinguished career at NASA as an engineer, astronaut and executive, and now serves as a leader in private industry.

After beginning her career at Texaco, Davis joined NASA as an aerospace engineer in 1979. After the Challenger disaster, Davis made a lasting impact on the Space Shuttle design by leading a multi-center team for the redesign of the Solid Rocket Booster Aft External Tank Attach Ring.

From 1987-98, she was an astronaut mission specialist, serving on three shuttle flights and logging over 673 hours in space. Later in her NASA career, Davis served as director of the Flight Projects Directorate from 2001-03 and as director of the Safety and Mission Assurance Directorate from 2003-05. From 2005-17, she was a vice president at Jacobs Engineering. She now serves as a technical expert for Bastion Technologies Inc. JH: President Trump announced that we would be back on the moon, and on our way to Mars, in five years. How does it feel to know that your alma mater’s additive manufacturing initiatives will play a huge part in that?

JD: It’s great. There are a lot of Auburn engineers not only at Marshall but at the other space centers, and so we’re building the space launch system with just the rockets with the Orion module on top. That’s what I am working on now still at NASA as a contractor and it’s really exciting. We have started working on the hardware right now and we will begin testing it within the next year.

Jan Davis, ’77 mechanical engineering.

me was on my second mission. It was protein crystal growing experiments — to grow a perfect crystal of a protein. Your body is made up of proteins, so they want to know what the proteins look like exactly so that a particular drug can attach to it to prevent a bad bug from attaching to it. They just needed to know the structure.

JH: Which of your space missions saw the most meaningful research?

So they bring the protein back and do a 3-D computer model of what we do in space. They didn’t know what insulin looked like back in 1994. So we had two big batch runs with insulin and grew a perfect crystal that made breakthroughs in research for diabetes and artificial insulin. But that particular flight was a oneshift mission, so my crystal started growing when I was supposed to go to bed, so I had to do some things to keep the experiment crystal growing.

JD: Well, all three of my missions had a lot of scientific experiments, but the one that’s most meaningful to

I didn’t want to go to bed, I wanted to make this crystal grow, and it did.

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5 Minutes With

Davis took a reminder of Auburn with her on each of her three space missions.

JH: Didn’t you take an Auburn pennant up there with you once?

JD: I did, every flight I took something from Auburn.

The first flight I had a pennant. We’re allowed to take two things that we can take out of our locker and display. Everything else was stowed. So one of the two things was an Auburn pennant and we had a module on that flight, our laboratory module. You’re supposed to take your module out and then put it back but I left it up there the whole mission. Our mission manager was an Alabama grad, so I said to him ‘when you guys have an Alabama astronaut, you can put an Alabama pennant.’ But yeah, I left it up there. I flew something from Auburn in every mission. Sometimes I’d ask Auburn what they wanted me to fly, but in that case I just flew my pennant. I also always had an orange and blue shirt with me.

JH: Let’s talk about the training; how intensive is it to prepare not only for what you have to do in space, but for the physical demands of getting there?

JD: Well, the biggest challenge is the mental challenge; there’s just so much to learn. The physical challenges are there, too, especially training for a spacewalk or some of the other things. We get centrifuge training so we know how to experience g-force during launch, but as I said, it’s a mental challenge to learn so much

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for a podcast featuring Jan Davis

about the shuttle systems themselves, but also, they have an expert come in and teach us about astronomy and meteorology.

We took a field trip out to New Mexico where we had all kinds of great learning experiences, and I like to learn, but then for flying the T-38 jets, we had to go through survival training that the Air Force flyers have to do — water survival, wilderness survival, parachute training, ejection seat training and all that kind of stuff.

So that was kind of intense; but I loved it. I mean, it was exciting for me to be able to fly a military jet, you know, that was just awesome, because I was already a little plane pilot. It was all more than I ever thought it would be.

JH: You also went to Georgia Tech and the University of Alabama at Huntsville. I’m sure they try to claim you as much as we do. But Auburn is obviously the best. We’re special, right?

JD: You’re right, all three alma maters have done a lot but Auburn really embraces the Auburn astronauts.

The university had us here years ago when all the former astronauts were still alive, they had us here to give talks. Auburn is a very special place and the people are special. I noticed how friendly and helpful the students were and people say ‘hi’ to you, so yeah, it’s a very special place. I always enjoy coming back.

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Evolution of Asteroids

BY MASATOSHI HIRABAYASHI

From the Faculty

A

steroids are rocky, small objects in the solar system. They are called NearEarth Asteroids, or NEA’s when their heliocentric orbits (the orbits centered at the sun) are close to the Earth’s.

For the last few decades NEA’s have been considered to be interesting objects for multiple purposes.

Scientifically, they are key records of the formation and evolution of the solar system.

They have also been targeted as planetary resources, or potential use of minerals, water and other materials.

Therefore, better understandings of NEA’s will substantially expand possibilities and capabilities for our future explorations to these objects.

Recently, two spacecrafts from different aerospace exploration agencies have explored NEA’s in detail.

Hayabusa2, led by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, has observed asteroid Ryugu, which is named after a castle under the sea in a Japanese fairy tale.

On the other hand, OSIRIS-REx, led by NASA, has investigated asteroid Bennu, the name of which is from an Egyptian deity that appears like a bird.

These NEA’s were selected to be scientifically impactful to provide strong insights into the origin of human lives because they contain carbon-rich materials and are believed to have come from the main belt (a reservoir of asteroids orbiting between Mars and Jupiter).

Ryugu and Bennu possess unique geophysical features such as shapes, structure and material compositions.

These NEA’s are not made of a single rock but consist of a pile of numerous rocks, and thus are called rubble pile asteroids. Interestingly, their shapes look like diamonds on playing cards and are called top shapes.

Unfortunately, it has poorly been understood how and why these rubble pile asteroids have evolved to have such strange top shapes.

The Space Technology and Application Research, or STAR, lab has played a critical role in Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx. The STAR lab has especially contributed to giving scientific clues on this question.

Masatoshi Hirabayashi

Our lab has developed a technique for characterizing the behavior of piles of rocks in a microgravity environment, which is not exactly the same as the behavior of sand piles sliding seen in quarries. We incorporated this technique into a finite element modeling approach to numerically model the internal structure of these asteroids.

We found that their rotation is a key contributor to the evolution of their top shapes. The centrifugal force driven by fast rotation pushes materials in the radial direction to develop a ridge at the equator and a symmetric shape along the spin axis.

Using our novel approach, we successfully explained the deformation process seen in their asteroids uniquely happens due to their microgravity environments.

Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx have provided significant information of Ryugu and Bennu. Our lab will keep contributing to these spaceflight exploration missions and provide further constraints on the geophysical properties of these asteroids.

We believe that our work will develop new approaches that will enable further advanced spaceflight exploration missions to asteroids.

Masatoshi Hirabayashi is an assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering.

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Faculty Highlights Mark Adams, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, was awarded $3 million in funding from T2S Solutions for his research toward the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command.

J. Brian Anderson, associate professor of geotechnical engineering, was awarded a $222,802 grant from the Alabama Department of Transportation for his research on load rating for corrugated metal culverts.

Lauren Beckingham, assistant professor of civil engineering, received an $865,973 Major Research Instrumentation Award from the National Science Foundation, or NSF, for the acquisition of an X-ray Computed Nanotomography system with in situ material testing to advance understanding of natural and engineered materials.

She also received a $315,000 grant from NSF for her research on quantifying the evolution of accessible mineral surface areas and pore connectivity for improved simulation of mineral reaction rates.

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David Bevly, the Bill and Lana McNair Professor of mechanical engineering, was awarded $1.5 million from seven sponsors for his research in the GPS and Vehicle Dynamics Laboratory.

Ben Bowers, assistant professor of civil engineering, was awarded a $133,304 grant from the Alabama Department of Transportation for his work on structural pavement design.

Christian Brodbeck, research engineer, was awarded $1.5 million in funding from the Federal Transit Administration for his “Low and No Emission-Component Assessment Program.�

Natalie CĂĄpiro, assistant professor of civil engineering, was awarded a $347,560 grant for her work on the development and laboratory validation of mathematical modeling tools for prediction of polyfluoroalkyl substances transformation, transport, and retention in aqueous film-forming foam source areas.

Pengyu Chen, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, was awarded a $1.87 million grant from the National Institutes of Health for his development of optofluidic nanoplasmonic biosensors for next generation point of care immunoassays.

Selen Cremaschi, the B. Redd associate professor of chemical engineering, was awarded $427,360 in funding from Chevron Energy Technology Company for her two research projects on uncertainty optimization in multiphase flow predictions and data analytics for asset integrity monitoring and fault detection due to solids.

Jerry Davis, Daniel F. and Josephine Breeden Professor of industrial and systems engineering, was awarded a $263,435 grant from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, for the Occupational Safety and Ergonomics Program led by the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Faculty Highlights

Peter He, associate professor of chemical engineering, was awarded a $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop data-enabled engineering project modules based on real data and applications.

Mark Hoffman, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, was awarded a $1 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration for Auburn’s Lono Bus Testing Facility.

Bo Liu, assistant professor of computer science and software engineering, and Levent Yilmaz, professor of computer science and software engineering, were awarded a $420,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to support their research on trustworthy, explainable and riskaware AI. Masoud MahjouriSamani, assistant professor of electrical and computer

Engineering, and Nima Shamsaei, associate professor of mechanical engineering, were awarded a $399,000 grant from the Advance Manufacturing program of the National Science Foundation for their research on additive nanomanufacturing of multifunctional materials and hybrid structures.

Michael Perez, assistant professor of civil engineering, was awarded a $189,000 grant for his research on uncovering the effects of stereotype threats on Latino students’ success in undergraduate engineering.

Joe Majdalani, the Hugh and Loeda Francis Chair of aerospace engineering, received the J. Leland Atwood Award from the American Society for Engineering Education in conjunction with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Raymond (Buzz) Powell, assistant director of Auburn’s National Center for Asphalt Technology, was awarded a $225,000 grant from Iowa State University for the launch of accelerated performance testing on the 2018 NCAT Pavement Test Track.

Scott Martin, assistant research professor of mechanical engineering, was awarded a $300,000 grant from Parsons for his work on advanced missile PNT technologies, engineering and analysis study.

Anton Schindler, Mountain Spirit Professor of civil engineering, was elected to be a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, America’s oldest national engineering society representing more than 150,000 members worldwide.

Andrzej Nowak, Elton and Lois G. Huff Eminent Scholar Chair and department chair of civil engineering, was awarded a $239,713 grant from the California Department of Transportation for his research on the calibration of bridge deck design.

Nima Shamsaei, associate professor of mechanical engineering, was awarded $5.1 million in funding from NASA for his research on rapid analysis and manufacturing propulsion technology.

Auburn Engineering | 75

Faculty Highlights

Daniel Silva, assistant professor of industrial engineering, was awarded a $207,754 grant from Raymond Corporation for his research on real-time rural medicine handling and transport using trucks and drones.

Adit Singh, James B. Davis Professor of electrical and computer engineering, was awarded a $499,439 grant from the National Science Foundation for his research on minimizing system level testing of integrated circuits.

Norm Speakman, professor of aerospace engineering, was recently named the Konrad Dannenberg Educator of the Year by the Greater Huntsville Section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Yin Sun, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, received the best

76 | Auburn Engineering

paper award at the IEEE/IFIP WiOpt Conference in 2019 for his work on remote estimation.

Foundation for the development of a non-equilibrium plasma coupled rapid compression machine.

Yi Wang, assistant professor of biosystems engineering, was awarded a $500,000 grant from USDA-NIFA to develop a light inducible (or dark-inducible) cell suicide biocircuits for efficient biocontainment of recombinant microorganisms during practical biotechnology applications in the natural environment. Wang is also the recipient of the 2019 Association of Overseas Chinese Agricultural, Biological, and Food Engineers, or AOCABFE, Early Career Award.

Randy West, director of Auburn’s National Center for Asphalt Technology, was awarded $1.34 million in funding from four sponsors for research on mixtures in asphalt technologies, as well as the performance of airport pavements constructed following state specifications for highway materials.

Nam Tran, assistant director of Auburn’s National Center for Asphalt Technology, was awarded a $450,000 grant from Cargill Inc. for research on the optimization of asphalt mixture performance with rejuvenator.

Nick Tsolas, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, received a $657,627 Major Instrumentation Award from the National Science

Promotions Maria Auad was named the W. Allen and Martha Reed Endowed Professor of chemical engineering.

Nima Shamsaei was named the Philpott-WestPoint Stevens Distinguished Associate Professor of mechanical engineering.

Dongye Zhao was named the Auburn Alumni Engineering Council Professor of civil engineering.

Jim Odom, ‘55 mechanical engineering, Distinguished Auburn Engineer; Bobby Keith, ‘63 mechanical engineering, Distinguished Auburn Engineer; Olivia Owen, ‘77 civil engineering, Distinguished Auburn Engineer; Dan Bush, ‘72 industrial engineering, Superior Service; Emily Doucette, ‘06, ‘08 and ‘12 aerospace engineering, Outstanding Young Auburn Engineer; Dale York, ‘76 and ‘78 civil engineering, Distinguished Auburn Engineer; and Laura Kezar, ‘08 chemical engineering, Outstanding Young Auburn Engineer.

The Award Goes to...

Seven outstanding alumni and ambassadors of the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering were honored in September by the Auburn Alumni Engineering Council in the newly constructed Brown-Kopel Engineering Student Achievement Center for their distinguished professional careers.

These alumni include four who were recognized as Distinguished Auburn Engineers, two as Outstanding Young Auburn Engineers and one for Superior Service to the college.

Bobby Keith, ’63 Mechanical Engineering Distinguished Auburn Engineer

million by the time he retired in 1990. He continues to serve on the board of directors.

Bobby Keith is a 1963 graduate with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering who is a veteran of the construction industry.

In 1970, Keith took a job with Hoar Construction in Birmingham as a field supervisor, rising through the ranks to become chief executive officer. Hoar Construction specializes in healthcare and retail markets, consistently ranking among the country’s most active contractors. As he advanced through the company, it grew to become one of the South’s largest contractors, with revenue growing from $20 million to more than $100

He also served as president of the Alabama chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors and received the organization’s Cornerstone Award in 2000.

Prior to his time at Hoar Construction, Keith worked for Northrop Space Laboratories on thermodynamics of heat transfer in missile propulsion systems and, later, helped in the development of the guidance program for the Saturn V rocket system used during the Apollo program. He has been active in constructionrelated mission work around the

world, in addition to civic service on the Hoover School Board and the boards of several hospitals.

He established the Keith Family Presidential Endowed Scholarship in the College of Engineering and also serves on the Civil Engineering Advisory Board.

Jim Odom, ’55 Mechanical Engineering Distinguished Auburn Engineer Jim Odom earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1955 before spending more than 30 years of his career with NASA, contributing to some of the greatest accomplishments in space history. He spent the majority of his career at NASA at

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Awards

the Marshall Space Flight Center, rising through the ranks and culminating in his appointment as director of the Science and Engineering Directorate in 1986.

In 1988, he was relocated to NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., to develop and direct the $24 billion International Space Station Freedom Program — the largest space station program in history.

During the early stages of his NASA career, Odom worked on the development and launches of the nation’s first communication satellites, which included weather satellites, lunar rovers, unmanned space probes and telescopes. As his career progressed, he played key roles in developing the Saturn V launch vehicle and the external tank project on the Space Shuttle, as well as managing the Hubble Space Telescope Project. After retiring from NASA in 1990, Odom was appointed president and CEO of Huntsville engineering firm Applied Research Inc., and then in 1994 began working as a consultant to Science Application International Corporation.

Odom was twice recognized with the Presidential Rank of Meritorious Executive for his work on the space program and also received NASA’s Distinguished Service Medal.

Olivia Owen, ’77 Civil Engineering Distinguished Auburn Engineer Olivia Owen is a 1977 civil engineering graduate who made

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a lasting contribution in the petroleum industry. During her distinguished 34-year career with the ExxonMobil Corporation, her exemplary work and exceptional engineering prowess allowed her to rise to leadership roles with diverse assignments and crucial responsibilities.

also played a pivotal role in the establishment and growth of 100+ Women Strong.

Dale York, ’76 and ’78 Civil Engineering Distinguished Auburn Engineer

She began her career as a facilities engineer for oil and gas production in Louisiana and as a reservoir engineer supporting drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Within the refining and supply department, she managed the purchasing of domestic and international crude oil for Exxon’s U.S. refineries. While living in London, she managed strategic planning and business analysis for Europe and Africa.

Dale York earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering in 1976 and 1978, respectively, and is the immediate past president and senior principal of LBYD Inc. He has made a permanent impact on the state of Alabama and future generations of engineers. With over 30 years of experience in structural engineering, he completed more than 650 projects throughout the Southeast and is a registered professional engineer in Alabama and 14 other states.

In 2004, Owen became the global security manager for ExxonMobil in Dallas. She was responsible for developing and directing ExxonMobil’s security program worldwide. She traveled to over 40 countries, spanning six continents, and reviewed security initiatives with U.S. State Department regional security officers and with representatives from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense.

Owen became an ExxonMobil Corporate Officer and was named the vice president for safety, security, health and environment in 2009.

She retired in 2011.

Immediately after graduation, York joined Lane/Bishop/Hodnett Inc. He quickly climbed the ranks of the company and was promoted to an associate five years later.

In 1987, York was invited into the firm as a stockholder and principal, and the company was renamed LaneBishopYorkDelahay Inc. He was instrumental in the company’s growth to one of the largest providers of civil and structural engineering services in the Southeast. In 2006, while York was senior principal and president, LBYD Inc. was inducted into the State of Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame.

In addition to her philanthropic support of Auburn Engineering and service to the Auburn Alumni Engineering Council, Owen has

York served many engineering councils and organizations and held a variety of leadership positions as well. He is a past

Five Minutes With Awards Features chairman, vice chairman and treasurer of the Auburn Alumni Engineering Council. In 2004, he was recognized as Engineer of the Year by the American Council of Engineering Companies of Alabama and proclaimed an ACEC fellow in 2010.

Emily Doucette, ’06, ’08, ’12 Aerospace Engineering Outstanding Young Auburn Engineer Emily Doucette is a three-time Auburn Engineering graduate, earning her bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate in aerospace engineering between 2006 and 2012. Since 2017, she has served as assistant chief scientist of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Munitions Directorate. In this role, she is responsible for technical program developments, seminars, briefings and distinguished visitors to the Munitions Directorate and leads Technical Sufficiency Review and approval for more than $200 million of the Munitions Directorate’s research portfolio. She previously served from 2012 to 2017 as a research aerospace engineer in the Weapons Navigation Branch of the Air Force Research Laboratory.

During her career, Doucette has produced 11 peer-reviewed publications and 23 reviewed conference proceedings/briefings.

She has given back to Auburn by serving on the College of Engineering Young Alumni Council and also as vice chair of the Department of Aerospace Engineering Advisory Council.

Laura Kezar, ’08 Chemical Engineering Outstanding Young Auburn Engineer

Dan Bush, ’72 It’s my Industrial Engineering Superior Service

Laura Kezar is a 2008 chemical engineering graduate who has spent more than 11 years of her career with Chevron, advancing to the position of lead construction engineer.

Dan Bush is a 1972 industrial Happenings engineering alumnus who enjoyed a 33-year career with Southern Company and Alabama Power before embarking on aFrom secondthe faculty career as a development officer with the College of Engineering.

Faculty highlights He began his time with Alabama Power as a co-op student in 1969 before advancing through the ranks as a senior engineer and senior quality assurance engineer and finally working in Alabama Power’s corporate office as a direct account executive and contract analyst.

Kezar began her career as a facilities engineer in Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle and then the San Juan Basin. From 2013 to 2015, she was the Black Belt Facilitator for Lean Sigma projects for Deepwater Gulf of Mexico major capital projects.

Beginning in 2015, Kezar was a process engineer for Chevron’s Tigris and Anchor projects, two early-concept, multi-billion dollar Deepwater Gulf of Mexico major capital projects. In this position, Kezar led cross-functional teams of 20 to 30 people in the completion of work plans and decision analysis for project focus decisions critical for concept selection and presented recommendations to senior management, receiving endorsement of $200 million in funding.

Kezar has served Auburn in 100+ Women Strong, the Auburn Alumni Association Board of Directors and the Greater Houston Auburn Club.

She is a member of the Department of Chemical Engineering’s Alumni Council and is the former chair of the Auburn Engineering Young Alumni Council.

job

Earlier this year, Bush retired as a senior major gifts officer after 17 years with the college, where he has built lasting relationships with hundreds of engineering alumni over his career and has facilitated more than $70 million in gifts benefiting Auburn students and faculty. Bush built lifelong relationships with many Auburn alumni which allowed him to present the college’s goals and objectives to them in an atmosphere of trust. This encouraged alumni to explore their areas of interest with him and follow up with gifts for these areas.

Because of his extraordinary ability as a fundraiser, Bush had a significant impact on the college’s ability to implement and support programs that enhanced the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering’s image and ranking.

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