Arizona Engineer | Spring 2018

Page 1

NEWS.ENGINEERING.ARIZONA.EDU

ARIZONA

ENGINEER COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

VOLUME 41

NUMBER 1

SPRING 2018

INSIDE THIS EDITION PLUS 6

BRAIN INJURY Modeling Reveals Deep Trauma Patterns

8 Engineering Design Day 2018

Record-Breaking 120 Projects, 600 Students and $35K in Prizes

10 Blasting Through Barriers

The Future of Mining Has Diverse Perspectives

11 Lessons in Engineering Leadership New Speaker Series Delivers Valuable Insider Insight 41:1

Spring 2018

|

1


DEAN’S MESSAGE

Engineering leadership proves to be right for the University of Arizona.

Change Is in the Air

SMALL WONDER THAT engineers head up many Fortune 500 companies. They make great leaders! Our own Dean Jeff Goldberg was asked to serve as acting senior vice president for academic affairs and provost for the University of Arizona. Clearly, his strong leadership style; commitment to faculty, staff and students; and deep knowledge of engineering processes and global progress inspired President Robbins to choose him for this senior position.

College at the Heart of Fourth Industrial Revolution President Robbins and the University community are developing a strategic plan focused on bold initiatives inspired by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. With its expertise in the “internet of things,” artificial intelligence, machine learning, sensors and quantum computing, UA Engineering is at the core of the plan. Having exceeded its goals in student enrollment and faculty growth, the college is well positioned for its role in the future of education, research, and community and global service. Fall 2018 is shaping up to have the largest incoming class of freshmen in history! Faculty members are systematically engaging students in active learning and collecting performance data to better understand the benefits of this new teaching approach. The college is creating a course in which students merge internet of things technologies and fundamental engineering and science to design and develop medical devices. The university, college and partners are constructing a hypersonic wind tunnel to test aerodynamic designs. In cooperation with the College of Optical Sciences, UA Engineering is hiring faculty to elevate quantum computing and communications research.

Moving Forward with Shared Tradition of Excellence As an alumnus of the UA College of Engineering (BS 1983, MS 1985 and PhD 1989), I am proud to be a faculty member and to have this opportunity to serve as acting dean. I have enjoyed meeting some of the college’s outstanding alumni this spring and look forward to getting to know more of you in the coming months. I also understand that it is our alumni who have created a strong heritage of excellence and positioned the college to help lead the University of Arizona, as well as our communities, country and the world, into the Fourth Industrial Revolution future. Thank you for your successes and for your continued support.

K. Larry Head Acting Dean

2

|

ARIZONA ENGINEER

klhead@email.arizona.edu • 520.621.6594 • Twitter: @kelheadaz


ARIZONA

ENGINEER COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

VOLUME 41

NUMBER 1

COVER PHOTO

SPRING 2018

Going Green—Hands-on research into algae for biofuel production can be a messy business.

CONTENTS FEATURED STORY

IN EVERY ISSUE

6 Brain Injury Modeling Reveals Deep Trauma Patterns

2 Dean’s Message

New biomedical engineering research indicates that traumatic brain injury is caused by stretching and straining of tissue deep below the surface of the brain.

13 Class Notes 15 Building Our Legacy

IN THIS ISSUE 8

Engineering Design Day—Biggest day in event’s history showcases vast range of senior capstone projects.

10

11

Blasting Through Barriers—UA’s Mining Engineering students converge on campus from all over the world.

New Speaker Series—New speaker series gives alumni and students a glimpse into the boardrooms of industry giants.

The University of Arizona College of Engineering P.O. Box 210072 Tucson, AZ 85721-0072 engineering.arizona.edu Twitter: @azengineering Facebook: @UACollegeofEngineering 520.621.3754 • classnotes@engr.arizona.edu

Arizona Engineer is published twice a year for alumni and friends of the University of Arizona College of Engineering.

Stories in this print edition have been edited for length, and it is not feasible to include related multimedia such as photo galleries, video and audio files, and links to related websites. Visit Arizona Engineer online at news.engineering.arizona.edu for full stories, news archive, people profiles, and photo and video galleries.

All contents © 2018 Arizona Board of Regents. All rights reserved.

Managing Editor Contributors Art Director Photography

Pete Brown Emily Dieckman, Jill Goetz David Hostetler Pete Brown, Kris Hanning

The University of Arizona is an equal opportunity, affirmative action institution. The University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or genetic information in its programs and activities.

41:1 41:1

Spring 2018 Spring 2018

| |

3 3


Goldberg Succeeds Comrie as UA’s Chief Academic Officer

P

PROFESSOR JEFFREY B. GOLDBERG of the College of Engineering was named acting provost of the UA by President Robert C. Robbins. Goldberg follows Andrew Comrie, who is returning to a faculty role in the School of Geography and Development after five years serving as provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. “As dean of the College of Engineering, I have emphasized the importance of bringing engineers to leadership positions to drive change,” Goldberg said. “This is the perfect opportunity to put that theory into practice and bring an engineer to the forefront of the university, where President Robbins is spearheading a focus on how the university is revolutionizing society.”

Jeff Goldberg

Under Goldberg’s leadership, the college has seen increased enrollment and made strides in undergraduate and graduate student quality and inclusiveness. The number of students enrolled in the Engineering Design Program has more than doubled under his tenure.

Larry Head Takes Over as Acting Dean of UA College of Engineering

L

LARRY HEAD, PROFESSOR in the Department of Systems and Industrial Engineering and director of the UA Transportation Research Institute, will serve as acting dean of the College of Engineering. Head, a transportation researcher who earned his PhD in systems and industrial engineering at UA in 1989, was head of the Systems and Industrial Engineering Department for seven years. “I’m excited to have this Larry Head opportunity with the College of Engineering,” Head said. “I’m looking forward to working with the College of Engineering team, using the universitywide strategic planning efforts to be a part of shaping the future and ensuring that we are a part of what makes the University of Arizona strong.”

Salt River Project Helps UA Engineering Students Help Others

A partnership between the UA College of Engineering and the Salt River Project is enhancing students’ hands-on learning while helping hurricane victims ensure their drinking water is safe.

W

WHEN ENGR 102 students created water pasteurization indicators, or “WAPIs,” during the required introductory course, they didn’t know the devices would go on to help Puerto Ricans reeling from Hurricane Maria pasteurize water and help prevent waterborne illness. The simple, low-cost, reusable devices contain a soy wax that melts when water reaches 149 degrees Fahrenheit, well below

4

|

ARIZONA ENGINEER

boiling point but hot enough to kill microbes like Giardia and E. coli. In areas with dire fuel shortages and crippled or nonexistent water sanitation systems, WAPIs can be lifesavers. ENGR 102 students have made WAPIs in past years, but all 500 students in the class made them in fall 2017, thanks to a $22,000 gift from the Salt River Project to the college to support course supplies and instructional materials and UA Engineering student clubs.

Don’t Worry, Be WAPI—Engineering freshmen build simple but effective water purifiers in an introductory class.


UA Researchers on Winning Team in Lunar Exploration Competition

R

RESEARCHERS AT THE UA and partnering institutions are investigating meteoritic impacts on the far side of the moon. The Lunar Meteoroid Impacts Observer, or LUMIO, project is headed by Francesco Topputo, assistant professor in aerospace systems at Polytechnic University of Milan, who is joined by Roberto Furfaro, associate professor in the Department of Systems and Industrial Engineering and the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, and Vishnu Reddy, assistant

professor at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. The project will use an advanced camera mounted on a CubeSat, or miniature satellite, to monitor meteorites striking the moon, which can further scientists’ understanding of the debris environment in near-Earth space. LUMIO will travel past the moon and orbit a fixed point for about a year before disposal, possibly in the form of a deliberate crash-landing. The debris from the impact could provide valuable information about the moon’s subsurface.

See You On the Dark Side of the Moon—Roberto Furfaro, associate professor in the departments of systems and industrial engineering and aerospace and mechanical engineering, is part of a team sending CubeSats to photograph meteorite impacts on the far side of the moon. (Photo courtesy of CALS)

UA ENGINEERING AWARDS SHORTS Meagan Tran, a biomedical engineering student, is a 2018 recipient of the Robert Logan Nugent Award, given to students who are actively and enthusiastically engaged in community and university service. Chemical engineering student Leah Kaplan is one of two recipients of the university’s 2018 Merrill P. Freeman Medal Award, given annually to UA seniors for outstanding moral force of character. Namrah Habib, a double major in chemical and aerospace engineering, received the Robie Gold Medal Award. Earlier this year, Habib was awarded a 2018 Churchill Scholarship and was honored as one of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ “20 Twenties.” Timothy Frost, a doctoral student in the UA’s biomedical engineering program with a minor in aerospace engineering, tied for first place at the Western Association of Graduate Schools’ 3-Minute Thesis Competition for his presentation about “lungs on chips,” which use real human cells to simulate a lung. Assistant professor Stuart “Alex” Craig was recently selected to receive a Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research. He will receive approximately $637,000 over three years to fund his hypersonics research. Olesya Zhupanska, professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering, has been named a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and a class of 2018 associate fellow in the AIAA for her research on composite structures.

Dean Papajohn, associate professor of practice, was named Southern Arizona Post-Secondary Educator of the Year. Mohammad “Mo” Ehsani, founding president and CEO of QuakeWrap and UA professor emeritus, was named Southern Arizona Engineer of the Year. Ehsani was nominated for his award by Austin Urton, a structural engineer at QuakeWrap and a UA alumnus (BS 2011, ME 2013). Urton himself was named Young Engineer of the Year. Bharati Neelamraju, a materials science and engineering PhD student and graduate research assistant in assistant professor Erin Ratcliff’s lab, is one of 12 newly named Carson Scholars at the University of Arizona. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering professor Hao Xin was elevated to IEEE fellow “for his contributions to electromagnetic metamaterials and 3-D printing of metamaterial structures” in January 2018. Ricardo Valerdi, a University of Arizona associate professor of systems and industrial engineering, is the university’s new faculty athletics representative to the PAC-12 Conference and the NCAA. Kimberly Ogden, University of Arizona professor of chemical and environmental engineering and pioneer in the field of producing renewable energy from algae, has been elected 2018 president-elect and 2019 president of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, making her only the fifth woman to hold this position. 41:1 Spring Spring2018 2018 || 41:1

55


FEATURED STORY

BRAIN INJURY MODELING REVEALS DEEP

TRAUMA PATTERNS

New research indicates that

traumatic brain injury, which

contributes to about 30 percent of

injury-related deaths in the United States, is caused by stretching and straining of tissue well below the surface of the brain.

6 6|

| ARIZONA ENGINEER ARIZONA ENGINEER


C

“CONCUSSION is dubbed a silent epidemic, as it affects millions of people,” said Kaveh Laksari, UA assistant professor of biomedical engineering. “Our goal was to understand the underlying mechanism of the brain deformation during an impact. That will enable us to provide better diagnosis and prevention in the future.” Laksari is first author on the paper “Mechanistic insights into human brain impact dynamics through modal analysis,” published in the journal Physical Review Letters in March 2018. The paper demonstrates that some of the most dangerous brain injuries today don’t come from hitting your head on a hard surface. In fact, sometimes they come from not hitting your head on anything.

Changing Patterns There are two primary types of head injuries. In focal injuries, a particular part of the brain sustains a direct impact. Think someone hitting their head on the steering wheel in a car crash, leading to potential bruising or bleeding of the brain. Focal brain injuries, especially in sports, have decreased dramatically with the development of more sophisticated helmets since the 1960s. Now, however, doctors and scientists are seeing

an increase in diffuse injuries, in which smallerscale damage is spread throughout the brain. Laksari has been researching traumatic brain injury since 2007. During his time as a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University, he and a team of scientists

simulate all this data and the subsequent motion and deformation of the brain inside the skull,” Laksari said.

Modes of Movement When the brain undergoes an impact, its movements can be categorized into sections called modes. This study demonstrated that

“Now we have this big data set of sports head collisions, and we used a computer model to simulate all this data and the subsequent motion and deformation of the brain inside the skull.” KAVEH LAKSARI, UA assistant professor of biomedical engineering

developed a mouthpiece to measure and record kinematics, or how fast the brain is moving in space. When an athlete’s head experiences a rapid movement, a microprocessor in the mouthpiece triggers data-collecting sensors. Using these mouthpiece microprocessors, the researchers collected 537 head impact kinematics from 31 athletes, two of whom experienced concussions and one of whom lost consciousness.

the first mode involves the biggest movements and the most energy expenditure. In one example, the brain was displaced up to 3 millimeters, moving at 28 Hz, or 28 oscillations per second in the first mode. By the third mode, the brain was oscillating in smaller, quicker movements, at 42 Hz and only one millimeter of displacement. Modes aren’t just temporal, though: Different regions of the brain can experience different modes at the same time.

“Now we have this big data set of sports head collisions, and we used a computer model to

When modal frequencies are mismatched, or when one part of the brain moves faster or more slowly than

another part, stretching or straining between the brain’s regions can occur and cause injury. Laksari and his colleagues found that there are more instances of this straining phenomenon in the inner regions of the brain, especially in areas surrounding the brain’s ventricles, where cerebrospinal fluid – a substance that provides immunological protection and clears waste from the brain – is produced. “Before, popular thinking tended to be that the outside of the brain was the biggest area of concern because it could sustain impacts against the skull,” Laksari said. “We found that this mismatch is bigger in the deeper regions of the brain, and we were able to see a good correlation between our simulations and the pathological data from diagnosed injuries.”

Kaveh Laksari

41:1

Spring 2018

|

7


In the Loop—Team 19097 demonstrate their design for a closed-loop control system for aircraft wing stability. From left are Ricardo Vega, Deepika Devaraj, Eugenia Anane-Wae, Ryan Richard, Kharan Khalsa, Yahia Ghannoum and Matthew Meschberger.

Seniors Step Up at Engineering Design Day 2018 A device to simplify orthopedic surgery takes top prize in a field chock-full of incredible inventions.

H

HOT DOGS, LASER BEAMS and dronebased technologies abounded at the University of Arizona’s Engineering Design Day on April 30. But in the end, a device to help people stand on their own two feet came out on top. The Raytheon Award for Best Overall Design went to a laser-guided ankle positioning system for total ankle replacement. The device eliminates the need to fix metal to a patient’s shin to ensure the ankle’s alignment with the hip.

Surgical Precision—Team 17079 won the Raytheon-sponsored first prize for best overall design, and $5,000, for their laser-guided alignment system for use in ankle surgery.

8

|

ARIZONA ENGINEER

“This could open doorways to rethink the way we do orthopedic surgery,” said mechanical engineering team member Daniel Medrano.

Go-Getters and Showstoppers A team tasked with developing proof of concept for a digital distress-signaling system that uses all open-source software won Microsoft’s Award for

The PayPal-sponsored second prize for best overall design was awarded to an entrepreneurial team that developed a parachute system for drones in distress. Nearly 600 seniors competed for $35,000 in cash prizes, and more than 120 industry judges – many of them University of Arizona alumni – participated in Design Day 2018. “Not only are we excited to welcome back dozens of loyal sponsors to support student projects, but this year we have 19 new sponsors at the biggest Engineering Design Day in UA history,” said acting Dean Larry Head.

Good Judgement—More than 120 engineering professionals volunteered their time and expertise to evaluate the student projects.

Best System Software Design. General Dynamics plans to use the system to demonstrate to the U.S. Coast Guard the potential cost savings in using nonproprietary software. Austin Ziska and Erica Rao took home Honeywell awards for team


leadership. Rao’s team created equipment that Southwest Gas will use to remove gas from the ground after a leak, and which received second prize in the Bly Family Award for Innovation in Energy Production, Supply or Use. Using hot dogs as circuit boards and ketchup as epoxy, another team demonstrated an improved system for Apex Microtechnology to guard against IP theft. Team members, who won second prize in the Frank Broyles Engineering Ethics Award, reduced the time it takes to cover an open-frame circuit board in an opaque epoxy from two minutes to 10 seconds, all the while serving up 10-second snacks at Design Day.

Ready for the Workforce UA alumnus Scott Rowland, a mechanical engineering manager at Orbital ATK who was a project sponsor and judge, said spending a

Dispense Suspense—Biosystems engineering senior Laurel Anne Dieckhaus fine tunes her team’s design for a precision reagent dispenser.

year with seniors in the Engineering Design Program acts as an effective interview process.

designed a dust filtration system for air bearings, said the lessons she’d learned through the program were invaluable.

“It really speaks well of the market and the program here that all these students are finding jobs,” he said.

“It definitely helped us prepare for the workforce – our communication skills, our presentation skills, our technical skills and the terminology we learned along the way,” said the materials science and engineering senior.

Laura Barajas, a member of a Honeywell-sponsored team that

Ship Shape—Team 17011 designed a resupply system for Navy ships during underway replenishment. From left are Andrew Jacob Penn, Daniel Molina, Nicholas Varin, Henry Choi, Alexandra Regalado and Victoria Lantzy.

41:1

Spring 2018

|

9


Driving Ambition—Mining engineering student Edson Guebe drives a truck at the San Xavier Mining Laboratory. His story, and those of fellow global students, can be found at news.engineering.arizona.edu.

Blasting Through Barriers

UA builds mining future that has diverse perspectives.

U

UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA mining engineering students come from all over the world – from the mineral-rich deserts of Chile to the alluvial diamond deposits of Angola to the copper mines of Arizona. They become metallurgists, mine designers and managers, business executives, and professors across the globe. Many – including Edson Guebe, from Angola, and Miguel Pugmire, from Chile – plan to take their UA training back home to improve quality of life in other countries.

Ana Ingstrom

A career in mining offers myriad opportunities, including traveling abroad and working with people from different backgrounds and cultures. It takes all types of engineers, with all types of perspectives, to succeed in an industry with all types of challenges.

It takes alumni like Jeff Tysoe, whose parents and grandparents worked in the mines of rural Arizona. It takes people from some of the world’s top schools, like Gaurav Gupta, from India, who graduated from the UA with his master’s degree in spring 2018. It takes young women like Talita Duarte, a student from Brazil who studied abroad at the UA and was determined to find her way back to Arizona for graduate school. And it takes trailblazers like Ana Ingstrom, who earned an MS from the UA decades after being the first woman to receive a mining engineering degree from the University of Sonora in Mexico.

10

|

ARIZONA ENGINEER

“I thought everybody would see me as different, but they saw me in the same way they see everybody,” Ingstrom said. “The mining community is so great. It feels like we are all family.” Diversity is alive and well in the UA’s Department of Mining and Geological Engineering, where 43 percent of students are from minority populations, 18 percent are female and 10 percent are from other countries.

“The mining community is so great. It feels like we are all family.” ANA INGSTROM, Mining Engineering Graduate

Differences Make for Winning Teams The UA Lowell Institute for Mineral Resources sponsored a diversity workshop in December 2017 during the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration’s Arizona conference. In the discussion, moderated by Brad Ross, UA alumnus and co-director of the Lowell Institute, industry leaders, including Greg Boyce – co-chair of the Lowell Institute, board member at Newmont Mining Corp., and 2013 College of Engineering alumnus of the year – spoke on the value of diversity. “It’s hard to imagine any team succeeding if every player brought the same skills to the field,” Boyce said. “At the end of the day, we all want to play for a winning team – one where we’re included rather than isolated, respected rather than disregarded.”


New Speaker Series

Science Diplomacy Talk Series

Lessons in Engineering Leadership

During the spring semester, the college invited alumni, students, faculty and industry representatives to sit down with engineering leaders for some insight into managing people, projects and technology.

F

Formula for Success You could hear a pin drop during the first talk in the series as Microsoft’s Kurt DelBene, BS Industrial Engineering 1982, took his audience behind the scenes to discover what it takes to lead in a world growing more technologically complex every day. Industry leaders must stay engaged in the intricacies and trends of engineering, “deep in the weeds,” he advised students, while never losing sight of the bottom line. “You really have to keep your hands on everything, from a business perspective,” he said. An easygoing manner belied DelBene’s stature as one of the most influential leaders in the software industry. The stress can get intense, said the Microsoft chief digital officer, who races vintage Formula One cars to relax.

Crawford believes in technical education and advocates for the government to increase funding to nonacademic technical training programs. He also believes that workers without college degrees can find meaningful occupations by helping to fill a nationwide shortage of skilled laborers. His interest in making employees happy and productive was apparent when he spoke about the magic that happens when you get the right person in the right job. “They go home, they celebrate their successes, they don’t develop ulcers and they’re happy,” he said.

Best Job in the World Laura McGill, third speaker in the series and vice president of engineering at Raytheon Missile Systems, loves being an engineer. But she never imagined becoming VP of engineering. “Every job I’ve had seemed like the most fun job in the world, and I was really reluctant to move on to whatever was offered to me because I loved what I was doing so much,” she said.

McGill said she thinks of her work like a system where all the Executive Insight—Kurt DelBene, right, chats with a student from the audience after his talk on leadership. parts are connected: Not only is she responsible for keeping track of hundreds of engineers from Built on Hard Labor different disciplines, but she has to Former Sundt CEO Dave Crawford, BS coordinate everything from training Civil Engineering 1972, started at the and development to infrastructure firm as a laborer in 1968 to help pay his investments to keeping highway through school, and stayed there performance technology up to date. until his retirement in 2016.

Hassan Vafai and Kevin Lansey of the Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering and Mechanics brought three of the world’s leading science diplomats to speak at UA.

L

LIBERATION THROUGH EDUCATION

Roman Macaya, ambassador of Costa Rica to the United States, said his country’s mandatory and state-funded education has paid off in that, today, some of Costa Rica’s biggest exports are high-value services such as engineering design and medical instruments like heart valves. “What all of these have in common is that they require an education,” he said. “You could say medical tourism is our new coffee.”

SCIENTISTS EVERYWHERE Bruce Alberts, the chancellor’s leadership chair in biochemistry and biophysics for science and education at UCSF, wishes the world worked more like science works. “One of the great features of science is that we don’t believe we know anything,” he said. Alberts believes scientists should work Bruce Alberts in all sectors, with career paths for PhDs into areas such as law, government and media. “Science has a common culture,” he said. “Scientists can communicate across a common set of assumptions and values.”

VACCINATIONS AS DIPLOMACY Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, described how global vaccination led to an 83 percent reduction in measles deaths from 1990 to 2013. “We even talked about the elimination of measles, one of the great killers of children globally,” he said. But with the “antivaxx” movement causing an increase in measles outbreaks in the United States and Europe, he believes it’s more important than ever for scientists to communicate their research to the public.

41:1

Spring 2018

|

11


Cloud Computing—2018 da Vinci Fellow Armin Sorooshian, center, preps atmospheric sampling equipment with grad students Alex MacDonald, left, and Rachel Braun.

Da Vinci Dinner Honors Fellow, Scholars

Annual philanthropy event brings scholarship donors and recipients together for rooftop reception, convivial dining and compelling faculty talk while celebrating newly appointed fellow.

A

AT THE ANNUAL da Vinci Circle reception and dinner, College of Engineering donors gained a firsthand look into the student and faculty lives that their contributions help shape. Da Vinci supporters provide unrestricted gifts of at least $2,500 per year to the college. The dinner celebrates undergraduate da Vinci scholars and recognizes the exceptional faculty member chosen each year to receive a da Vinci fellowship and a $10,000 grant.

A Well-Versed Wildcat 2018 da Vinci fellow Armin Sorooshian spent his childhood running through the halls of Harshbarger, where his father was a professor and head of the Department of Hydrology and Water Resources and his mother worked as a Department of Geosciences senior researcher. Sorooshian went on to earn his bachelor’s degree in chemical and environmental engineering at UA and return a few years later as a professor. Today, his research into aerosol particles in the atmosphere and the human body and his dedication to his students have earned him a College of Engineering Education Faculty Fellowship, an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, and now a da Vinci fellowship. “I feel like I’ve lived my life through this college, and that’s why this honor is extremely special to me,” Sorooshian said. “It’s very humbling, especially since I was a student here, and now I’m on the other side of the table trying to give back to students.”

Not the Bugs You’re Looking For Biosystems engineering faculty researcher Bonnie Hurwitz gave a speech about her research combining the worlds of

12

|

ARIZONA ENGINEER

genomics and computer programming. Traditional methods of genome sequencing involve growing bacterium in a controlled environment and then sequencing it. Hurwitz’s work with “whole genome shotgun sequencing” is designed to examine how communities of microorganisms, including those from the human body, interact, because the way a person’s body responds to infection Bonnie Hurwitz often depends on their genomic makeup. Hurwitz had a fitting story to share about a particular microbe she identified during her PhD studies at UA. “When my young daughter kept getting ear infections, I of course, as a ‘modern molecular mom,’ swabbed her for a DNA sample,” Hurwitz said. She identified the bug and the solution – minor surgery – to rid her child of the bug for good, something rounds of untargeted antibiotics from the doctor’s office had failed to do.

Peace of Mind for Diligent Student Roslyn Norman is a mechanical engineering student and Marine Corps veteran who conducts outreach work encouraging young women and girls to pursue careers in STEM. She shared how much the scholarship meant to her. “When I first started college after my military service, I was stressed about my financial situation almost 24/7,” Norman said. “Scholarships at Pima Community College – including a NASA Space Grant – and at the UA – like the da Vinci – have helped ease financial burdens so I can maintain focus on classwork and other pursuits.”


CLASS NOTES

2010s

This just in from Washington, D.C., area twosome Dylan Kline and Paola Colemenares, BS/ChE 2016 and 2017: “We’ve worked our way into the space industry, so if anybody out there has similar interests, feel free to reach out to us!” Kline is working at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and earning his PhD at the University of Maryland. Colemenares has a job at at Northrop Grumman and is pursuing a master’s degree at Johns Hopkins. Autonomic cloud computing research conducted by Farah Fargo, PhD/ECE 2014, earned her an IEEE best research poster award Farah Fargo and a position at Intel in Boston as an architecture engineer in high-performance computing. Mike McBride and Rebecca Veach, both BS/ChE 2014, who were married in Arizona and live in Atlanta, are doing their bit for sustainability. Mike is pursuing his PhD in chemical engineering at Georgia Tech and developing an organic semiconductor. Rebecca, who got her master’s in civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon, is a project engineer for an environmental consulting firm. Edgar Rivera-Morales, BS/IE 2013, finished fourth in the high jump at the 2017 International Association of Athletics Federations World Championships in London. His older brother, Luis Rivera-Morales, BS/IE 2010, is a world-class long jumper.

“It’s hard to be bored if you’re an engineer.” That’s what Sonia Laughland, BS/ChE 2010, tells students at outreach events. “You get the best of both worlds, to be creative and to be technical.” In her job with ExxonMobil, Laughland works on air emissions, water-use compliance and waste management on Alaska’s North Slope.

2000s

Shariq Siddiqui, MS/ChE 2008 and PhD/MSE 2011, was a senior engineer at Intel before heading to Albany, New York, to join GlobalFoundries’ semiconductor Shariq Siddiqui technology research team in 2013. The process manager has more than 20 publications and 25 patents demonstrating his R&D in highvolume manufacturing technology.

1990s

Jeff Bonner’s hobby, which started at the UA with a fermenter and beer-making book, has matured into a bona fide brewery. Bonner, BS/NE 1991, and his wife Alison, MS/ChE 1991, opened Cave Brewing Co. in Pennsylvania in 2015. Jeff is also a cost control specialist at Talen Energy, and Alison teaches math at Penn State. Thad Smith, BS/NE 1994, was a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy for 12 years then briefly a program manager at General Dynamics in Massachusetts. Thad Smith In 2008, he returned to Tucson to work at Raytheon Missile Systems, where he is now a senior manager for business development.

Waxing Eloquent—Sonia Laughland uses lava lamps and makeup to demonstrate STEM principles at an “Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day” booth in Anchorage, Alaska.

As a senior at the UA, Todd Zuercher, BS/ME 1992, jokingly referred to his team’s competition vehicle as the “human-powered potato.” In contrast, at Motorola, General Dynamics and most recently Viasat in Tempe, Arizona, Zuercher has worked on satellites as well as space electronics destined for Saturn, the moon, Mars and the International Space Station.

1980s

Mike Hummel, BS/EE 1982 – a member of the UA Foundation’s Board of Trustees and the College of Engineering’s Industry Partner Board – has been named general manager and CEO of Arizona’s Salt Mike Hummel River Project. He has been with the public utility for 35 years. Alan Dennis, BS/ChE 1980, works on a team looking after BP’s interests in the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Dennis, whose one-of-a-kind license plate displays UA pride, has two sons with civil engineering degrees from the UA – one who works at the Naval shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, and one who’s managing construction for a nuclear power plant in Georgia.

41:1 Edgar Rivera-Morales

Spring 2018

|

13


CLASS NOTES

1970s

Wayne Seames, BS/ChE 1979 and PhD/ChE 2000, who has taught at the University of North Dakota for the last 18 years, added a 2018 university award for teaching excellence to his many honors.

Thomas Lindberg Wayne Seames

John Wade, BS/NE 1979, has spent nearly 40 years at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in western Arizona. Now he is making a big move to a different desert to mentor reactor engineers at the Barakah nuclear power plant in the United Arab Emirates. Henry Morgen, BS/EE 1977, who retired from Boeing five years ago, was the top fundraiser in running Henry Morgen at the 2018 Alzheimer’s Greater Los Angeles endurance fundraising event. In honor of his parents, he raised more than $8,600 participating in the marathon. Barbara Mizdail, BS/ME 1972, was the first female president of the UA Engineering Student Council before beginning her career as a systems Luke and product engineer and engineering instructor. Now she’s retired and proud to be a grandmother to future Wildcat Luke.

14

|

ARIZONA ENGINEER

1960s

During his 37-year career with Boeing in Seattle, Thomas Lindberg, BS/AE 1968, traveled to more than 30 countries doing jobs ranging from engineering and marketing to private aviation. These days he’s still traveling, and he’s fly fishing, bird hunting and painting.

retiring in 1993. His photographs appear in Arizona Highways and other magazines. Of his UA student days, he says, “There was no tuition. My cost of attendance was for room and board, books and beer.” WWII veteran Samuel Fall, BS/MinEng 1952, joined 22 other veterans on a Southern Arizona Honor Flight to visit the Washington, D.C., memorials built in their honor.

Samuel Fall

Antony Abraham

Antony Abraham, BS/ME 1962, worked at Kitt Peak for 40 years before retiring in 2011. He has been restoring a 1948 Chevrolet, including machining many of the engine parts himself, for almost the same number of years. The car, which has fewer than 100,000 miles on it, belonged to his wife in high school.

1950s

Robert McDonald, BS/CE 1958, worked at Caltrans, Fluor Corp., the U.S. Forest Service and his alma mater before

1962

Copper Tone —Tom Tone, BS/MinEng 1962, shown here at the Silver Bell Mine near Tucson, spent his early career as a general foreman for a copper refinery and as a field engineer. Later he co-owned metallurgical laboratories.


Building Our Legacy | Our Greatest Treasure “Hello! My name is Margie Puerta Edson, and I am the senior director of development and alumni relations at the UA College of Engineering. Dean Goldberg and I will be traveling to your town soon, and we’d like to schedule a visit.” Perhaps you’ve received an email or phone message like the one above and wondered, “Why is the college reaching out to me now, after 10, 20 or even 50 years?” Maybe you thought we were calling to ask for a donation. While we’d never turn down a gift from a generous alumnus, that is not the purpose of these calls. Over the last year the Engineering Development team and former Dean Jeff Goldberg, and now acting Dean Larry Head, have traveled across the country meeting hundreds of alumni and sharing news about UA Engineering teaching, research and entrepreneurship. Even dedicated readers of this alumni magazine and the monthly newsletters find the in-depth conversations about student and faculty accomplishments informative. But mostly, we listen to your story about what you’ve been doing since you graduated, whether that was in the last year or the last century. Our primary goal is to find out what you are passionate about and invite you back to campus for a visit, where you can deepen your connection with the college by: • Spending time with students from SHPE, SWE and the Baja Racing Team • Participating in active classroom learning experiences with faculty such as University Distinguished Professor Paul Blowers • Taking part in speaking events • Mentoring students and helping judge projects in the Engineering Design Program • Joining college leaders and fellow alumni to cheer on your Wildcats!

Margie Puerta Edson, CFRE Sr. Director of Development & Alumni Relations 520.626.0572 | puertaedson@email.arizona.edu

We want you to find your way back and discover a personally meaningful way to stay involved. College events and activities – such as the Engineers Breakfast at homecoming, da Vinci Dinner and Hall of Fame inductions – help us recognize alumni accomplishments. Having alumni on campus also helps the college identify potential presenters for the Lessons in Engineering Leadership speaker series. This year Microsoft executive Kurt DelBene, BS/IE 1982, and construction magnate Dave Crawford, BS/CE 1972, were among the speakers. Additionally, alumni visits have aided in designating members for UA Engineering’s Industry Partner Board and department advisory boards. Carole Haig, BS/MinEng 1988, from MWH Global Construction and Bob Rutherford, BS/AE 1978, from Northrup Grumman are among those serving. Your time, talent and knowledge help the College of Engineering thrive. So next time you get a call or email about our coming to a town near you, consider reconnecting, and plan a campus visit in return. Come see, feel and experience today’s UA College of Engineering. Tell us what you think about where the college is heading and help plan for the future. You are our greatest treasure.

FROM THE ARCHIVES Many thanks to all the alumni who wrote in identifying last edition’s archive photo, particularly to Jonathan Berry (BS/ME 1994), who is in the picture and currently works for GE Power in Greenville, South Carolina. He tells us that the photo is of his senior design team and their project, the Electrathon racecar, which won the Best Engineered Design award in 1994. Thanks also to Mike Marner (BS/ME 1988, BS/EE 1991), who pointed out that the team advisor was Rudy Eisentraut, who has a long and distinguished career at Hughes/Raytheon and as an AME adjunct professor. Pictured from left are team advisor Rudy Eisentraut, team leader Shane Olson, Chris Moreno, Jonathan Berry, Tammy Filtz and Jasem Al-Refaei.

41:1

Spring 2018

|

15


NONPROFIT ORG US POSTAGE PAID TUCSON AZ PERMIT NO. 190

The University of Arizona College of Engineering P.O. Box 210072 Tucson, AZ 85721-0072

CALLING ALL ALUMNI! Where has life taken you since graduation? We’d like to know and so would your college classmates. Please email us with details (about 300 words) and be sure to include the following information: • Name and year you graduated • Major • Degree (BS, MS, PhD, etc.) • Details of your activities

We’d also be interested to see – and share – pictures of your family, your latest project at work, or that boat or hot rod you just finished building in your garage. Vacation photos are great, too. We’ll publish your news and photos online and in the next print edition.

BEEN IN THE NEWS LATELY? Let us know if you’ve been getting some media attention. Just email a link to us and we’ll continue to spread the news via the college website and social media sites.

Please send your email to classnotes@engr.arizona.edu

FROM THE ARCHIVES This old photo has us stumped. There were no notes on the back of the print to give us a clue, so we need your help identifying the people and project.

16

|

ARIZONA ENGINEER

n ews.en gin eer in g.ariz ona .e du


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.