Engineer Fall 2011 by Boston University College of Engineering

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Imagineering Lab fuels student innovation p. 3 Biosensor boost for disease diagnosis p. 18 LEAP Alum transforms global organizations p. 21

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Engineering Health Care

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From the smallest molecule to the whole patient

44 Cummington Street Boston, MA 02215 Kenneth R. Lutchen dean

Solomon R. Eisenberg associate dean for undergraduate programs

Selim Ünlü associate dean for research and graduate programs

Donald Wroblewski associate dean for educational initiatives

College of Engineering Events

Richard Lally

Thursday, October 27, 2011 6–8:30 p.m. Engineers Without Borders Silent Auction Join EWB as they partner with Boston University’s School of Public Health, UNICEF and the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) to improve postnatal health care in the Mazabuka District in Zambia. Proceeds from ticket sales, auctioned items and donations directly benefit the group’s efforts to expedite data relay between hospitals, health clinics and patients.

Michael Seele

LSEB, 24 Cummington Street, Room 103 Cost: $20 To register, email ewbexec@bu.edu or visit www.bu.edu/alumniweekend.

design & production Boston University Creative Services

associate dean for administration

editor

Mark Dwortzan managing editor

Kathrin Havrilla staff writer

contributors

Samantha Gordon, Rachel Harrington, Susan Seligson

photography

College of Engineering, Mark Dwortzan, except where indicated

Friday, October 28, 2011 6 p.m. College of Engineering Distinguished Alumni Awards Ceremony & Champagne celebration “Engineers impacting Society: BU projects around the world” with Professor Muhammad Zaman, Department of Biomedical Engineering Join us for cocktails and a buffet dinner, followed by the presentation of this year’s Distinguished Alumni Awards and a keynote speech on how engineering is utilizing innovations to improve our world. Student Village I, 10 Buick Street, 18th Floor Cost: $20 To register and for more information, visit www.bu.edu/alumniweekend.

Stay Connected to the College of Engineering Join the ENG online community! Post, tag, tweet, ask questions, reconnect with alumni and watch engineering videos. Stay current on the most recent happenings, including networking opportunities, job fairs, seminars and other employment events.

www.facebook.com/BUCollegeofENG www.twitter.com/BUCollegeofENG www.youtube.com/BUCollegeofENG

ENGineer is produced for the alumni and friends of the Boston University College of Engineering. Please direct any questions or comments to Michael Seele, Boston University College of Engineering, 64 Cummington Street, Room 200, Boston, MA 02215. Phone: 617-353-2800; email: engalum@ bu.edu; website: www.bu.edu/eng.

Engineering Leadership Advisory Board John E. Abele Gregg Adkin ’86 Alan Auerbach ’91 Adam Crescenzi ’64 Roger A. Dorf ’70 Ronald G. Garriques ’86 Norman E. Gaut Joseph Healey ’88 Jon K. Hirschtick Bill I. Huyett Amit Jain ’85, ’88 Dean L. Kamen, Hon’06 Nick Lippis ’84, ’89 John Maccarone ’66 Venkatesh Narayanamurti Stephen N. Oesterle Richard Reidy, SMG’82 Binoy Singh ’89 John Tegan ’88 John Ullo David Wormley 1011 9050005701

Please recycle

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Contents • Fall 2011

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< Next Generation of Engineers

page 9 < New Associate Dean

page 25

Message From the Dean

Departments

ineng

3 Features

Cover story

Engineering Health Care

From the Smallest Molecule to the Whole Patient

New Imagineering Lab to Bolster Student Innovation

Reidy Family Career Development Professorship Launched

Up Front

Smarter Parking, Smarter City 6 Sweet Solution to Stubborn Bacteria 6 Moustakas Awarded $1.5M to Develop Handheld UV Laser

Mobilizing Microbes

Ramachandran Nets Over $2 Million to Boost Maritime Sensing and Communications Technologies 8 The Next Generation of Engineers

ENG Researchers Advance Powerful Biosensor Platforms Breakthroughs Could Bolster Point-of-Care Diagnosis of Infectious Diseases

A Disciplined Mind LEAP Alum Transforms Organizations Across the Globe

Igniting the Flame BME Alum Helps High School Students Discover Engineering

Cover: College of Engineering faculty and students are developing innovative health care solutions at every scale of biology—from molecule to cell to tissue to patient.

Secrets of Bat Flight

BU Academy Wins Top Award

Student Wins Health Care Prize

faculty

Dean Lutchen Elected President of National Biomedical Engineering Institute

Wroblewski Appointed Assoc. Dean for Educational Initiatives 25 Dean’s Catalyst Awards

New Faculty

Professors Bigio and Teich Become SPIE Fellows 28 news bytes

alumni

2011 Commencement

Alumni Events

Profiles

Honor Roll

class notes

message from the dean

Healthy Investing By Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen

Innovation drives our economic prosperity. That’s been beyond dispute since the Industrial Revolution. But as the United States government wrestles to get its books into something resembling balance, it is threatening to stifle innovation. The drive to cut spending from the federal budget has profound implications beyond the government’s balance sheet, particularly with regard to the foundational systems that catalyze America’s leadership in health care innovation. Our economy is inextricably linked to sustaining our innovation system. This system starts with basic research that can lead to transformative technologies and products, and includes public policy and federal agencies that have profound roles in the innovation process for devices and drugs on their way to stimulating new companies and being used in patients. Our economy and society are designed to rely on the federal government to support these systems so that advances in the private sector are possible. There is no other viable model.

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We are on the threshold of a Golden Age of health care technology that promises not only better health and lower costs, but many jobs and economic opportunities as well. This issue’s cover story offers a glimpse of how health care technology is advancing on numerous fronts: at the molecular level where DNA is being decoded; at the cellular level where innovative diagnostic technologies are being applied; at the tissue level where researchers are developing new ways to deliver lifesaving medication while obviating side effects; and at the system level where algorithms are being developed to help physicians interpret voluminous medical data. Cuts to research funding threaten not only to narrow the pipeline of new ideas but also to stifle the risk-taking among America’s most creative individuals so necessary to addressing some of society’s most pressing medical challenges, from cancer to Alzheimer’s to emerging infectious disease and more. Likewise, the pace and form of innovative ideas appears to be overwhelming the Food and Drug Administration’s capacity to efficiently oversee their introduction to the marketplace. The result is that smaller (and sometimes larger) companies cannot survive the time and cost associated with the process, meaning some innovations may never come into use. Patients suffer and economic opportunity for America is missed. A shortsighted or sledgehammer approach to the federal budget means dollars that could be spent on research and development today will not be

returned manyfold later as those innovations produce companies— even whole industries—that create jobs, wealth and, yes, tax revenue. Much of the discussion in Washington about health care focuses on its cost, and as president of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, I’ve been dismayed to hear some people blame medical technology. While health care costs are indeed escalating, the culprit is not the technology itself, but its misuse. MRIs, CT scans and other technologies clearly have improved health care tremendously and will eventually lead to reduced cost over a person’s lifetime. But not everyone who gets one of these tests needs one and our health care system is often designed to amplify the use of technology in situations for which it was not intended or clearly justified (endof-life, for example). However, many of today’s emerging technologies are relatively cheap and offer the potential to reduce the cost of health care, particularly over the long term. The return on the government’s investment in technology development has been extraordinary. It has been central to our standing as the world’s leading economy and put us at the forefront of biomedical innovation. But that lead is now threatened. The federal government is the only entity with the infrastructure, resources and proven track record of success to fund the development of new technologies that will improve our health both physically and fiscally. We need to seize this opportunity. If we don’t, someone else will.

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Ramachandran Nets Over $2 Million to Boost Maritime Sensing and Communications Technologies

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ENG ENG ENG ENG New Imagineering Lab to Bolster Student Innovation

or College of Engineering students, the path to becoming a Societal Engineer—one who uses the skills of the engineer to improve quality of life—involves not only coursework defined by their professors but also ample opportunity to work on extracurricular projects of their own design. In a major initiative aimed at providing significant support and guidance for such projects, the College has converted a 1,343-square-foot section of the first floor of 44 Cummington Street into a new “Imagineering Laboratory”

Photo by vernon doucette

where up to 40 engineering students at a time may explore and advance their own solutions to problems in health care, energy, security, communications and other domains. This unique facility was made possible by a donaThe new tion from Dr. Binoy Singh (BME‘89), an assistant imagineering lab, prior to professor of clinical medicine at Columbia University installation College of Physicians and Surgeons, clinical cardioloof tools and gist and director of clinical business development machinery.

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at Columbia University Medical Center/New YorkPresbyterian Hospital. Singh was inspired to become a cardiologist by the explosion of innovations in the marketplace that enabled more effective treatment of cardiovascular disease. [See page 36 for more details.] “We hope that this facility will ignite our students’ excitement for the innovation process by giving them hands-on experience,” said Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen. “Experiential learning opportunities are so important to our educational mission of creating engineers passionate about innovating to address society’s challenges.” “This new facility provides yet another opportunity for experiential learning outside the classroom,” said Associate Professor Donald Wroblewski (ME), associate dean for educational initiatives. “These types of openended, extracurricular design experiences help to bring classroom theory to life and expose students to the interdisciplinary nature of engineering.” Toward that end, the new Imagineering Laboratory will feature fixed and mobile workbenches; stationary equipment such as a drill press, band saw, and stations for grinding, soldering and polishing; hand tools from hammers to power drills; bins for materials (wood, metal, Lucite, wire, tubing and more), small components (nuts, bolts, screws, diodes and transistors, to name a few) and project storage; computers with CAD software; dropdown power lines; a rail system where projects can be stored or accessed; and lots of windows through which developing projects can be observed. “We’ve tried to make the workspace flexible enough so we can add to it as student needs evolve,” said Associate Dean for Administration Richard Lally. With tools and machinery provided by the College and guidance from faculty, graduate students and seniors, students will be encouraged to pursue their ideas and designs. Where applicable, they can take projects to the prototype stage and enter them in design competitions, and where feasible, they will be encouraged to take on partners from BU’s School of Management, work on plans to potentially commercialize their products and enter them in business competitions. Thanks to a gift from another ENG alumnus, John Maccarone (’66), the College will create the Undergraduate Innovation Program, which will fund ongoing operations at the Imagineering Laboratory. The new program will help finance student and faculty advisors, supplies and materials for the lab, and award cash prizes to undergraduates who, individually or in teams, design, build, test and defend original engineering solutions to challenges in health care, energy and other areas.

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Reidy Family Career Development Professorship Launched Assistant Professor Douglas Densmore (ECE) Named as First Recipient Boston University Trustee and College of Engineering Leadership Advisory Board Chair Richard D. Reidy (SMG’82), CEO of Progress Software, and his wife Minda G. Reidy (SMG’82, GSM’84), an educator at Andover High School, have established the Reidy Family Career Development Professorship at Boston University. The professorship will provide a salary, benefits and scholarly research support for a junior faculty member for a three-year term, with the recipient alternating between the College of Engineering and the School of Management. “BU has always been an entrepreneurial institution, and we think the Career Development program is an innovative idea for getting young and talented faculty the resources they need for advanced scholarship, research and teaching,” said Reidy. “As a result, BU will attract and retain the best faculty in the earlier parts of their careers who ultimately help BU not only by their scholarship and teaching, but also by their ability to attract the best students.”

Illustrating the point is Assistant Professor Douglas Densmore (ECE), who was named the first Reidy Family Career Development Professor during the 2010–2011 academic year. “The Reidy Professorship validated my decision to come to BU and gave me a jump start right off the bat,” said Densmore, who joined the College of Engineering faculty in the fall of 2010 after serving as a post-doctoral fellow at the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center in Emeryville, California. “It has added a level of visibility to my research and provided funds for research equipment that my lab needs to experimentally verify my synthetic biology computational tools.” Densmore, who earned a PhD in Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley in 2007, has developed widely used tools for the specification, design and assembly of synthetic biological systems. In addition to his regular teaching responsibilities, he directs a laboratory focused on integrating design automation research, and co-leads a team of students from Boston

up front Assistant Professor Douglas Densmore (ECE) (left), the first Reidy Family Career Development Professor, with Richard Reidy (SMG’82).

University and Wellesley College in the annual International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition, the premier undergraduate synthetic biology competition. Densmore embodies the Reidys’ decades-long dedication to high technology and educational innovation. Since graduating from BU, Richard Reidy has advanced business enterprise software— initially as a database systems software developer and architect at Computervision Corporation and Telesis Systems, and more recently as CEO of DataDirect Technologies and Progress Software. Minda developed enterprise software for more than 20 years before becoming a mathematics teacher at Andover High School in 2003, where she started the school’s first robotics club and is teaching an engineering course this fall that she personally developed.

“ The Reidy Professorship validated my decision to come to BU and gave me a jump start right off the bat,” said Densmore. “It has added a level of visibility to my research and provided funds for research equipment that my lab needs.” “We both believe that the future of the U.S., and frankly the world, requires investing in education for the sciences, mathematics and engineering,” said Richard Reidy. “We’ve set a course for contributing in any way we can, at all levels, and this scholarship is part of that endeavor.”

■ Four New Certificate Programs Established The College of Engineering is launching four new graduate certificate programs this fall in Engineering Innovation, Energy & Sustainability, MEMS and Product Design. Designed to offer professionals the opportunity to develop a deeper, more complex understanding in a focused area of study, the new programs are ideal for individuals who cannot commit to a full degree program, or who wish to supplement an advanced degree with additional technical training. “These four new certificate programs meet the growing demand for advancedlevel expertise in critical engineering challenge areas,” said Associate Professor Donald Wroblewski (ME), associate dean for educational initiatives. These fast-track programs require just 12 credits (three courses), and students may attend classes in person or via Distance Learning. To apply, you must have a BS in engineering or a related technical field. To learn more, visit the Professional Education microsite: www.bu.edu/eng/ professional.

■ ENG Wins Grant to Extend Undergrad Entrepreneurial Education The Kern Family Foundation has awarded the College of Engineering $763,000 to expand its efforts to develop an entrepreneurial mindset among all undergraduates that can help them use their technical skills to impact society. The three-year grant builds on a Kern-funded initiative begun three years ago and will greatly increase the number of students and faculty involved in the program. The program builds on a collaborative effort within Boston University between the College of Engineering and the School of Management, and boosts BU’s role in a multi-university collaborative aimed at enhancing the entrepreneurial mindset among engineering undergraduates. Jonathan Rosen, special assistant to the associate provost for undergraduate education, and College of Engineering Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen are co-principal investigators on this grant. “The Kern Family Foundation is playing a major role in helping us develop engineers who will enter the 21st-century workforce with advanced technical skills and a portfolio of professional skills including collaboration, critical and creative thinking, effective communication and teamwork, entrepreneurial thinking, and a passion for creating social value,” said Lutchen.

KUDOS

BU NOW RANKED AMONG top 20% OF ENGINEERING SCHOOLS ➤ ENG ranked at #39 nationally ➤ Up 3 places from last year and 12 places since ‘05 ➤ #18 in Research Expenditures per faculty member ➤ BME graduate program ranked #8 in U.S. —u.s. news & world report

Among other things, the College will use the new grant to introduce a concentration in Technology Innovation, expand the Technology Innovation Scholars program and launch the Imagineering Laboratory, where any undergraduate can brainstorm projects, prototype them and move them into practice. The College will also increase the number of Kern Faculty Fellows—who design cases, lectures, modules and projects in their existing courses to emphasize innovation processes and the entrepreneurial mindset— from six to 16. A recent initiative to pair Boston-area professionals with students in a mentoring program will be scaled up as well. The College will also collaborate with the other members of the Kern Family Foundation-supported Dynamic Compass Network—Gonzaga University, Kettering University, Lawrence Tech, St. Louis University and Worcester Polytechnic— to develop effective approaches, programs and curricular frameworks that incorporate the foundations of the entrepreneurially minded engineer. Among these will be weeklong summer “boot camp” programs designed to increase undergraduates’ exposure to entrepreneurial principles, as well as summer faculty workshops aimed at integrating entrepreneurial mindset elements into the curriculum.

■ BU Adds Engineering Study Abroad Program in France Boston University has expanded its study abroad programs for engineering students by adding a program in Grenoble, France, that starts in the spring of 2012. The one-semester program joins two existing engineering study abroad sites in Dresden, Germany, and Tel Aviv, Israel. Participants in all three programs complete a full semester of the same engineering courses they would be taking on the BU campus, all while immersing themselves in other cultures and learning more about the global engineering marketplace. In France, classes will be held at the Université de Grenoble, which offers a wide variety of classes in science and technology and is the country’s leading research center outside of the Paris region. Students in the Grenoble program will live with host families throughout the city. More information is available through the Study Abroad office at www.bu.edu/abroad/programs/ grenoble-engineering. —Kathrin Havrilla

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to Stubborn ENG ENG Bacterial Infections Be Sweet ENG ENGMight

ENG researchers: Sugar could fight recurring infections, TB A discovery by researchers at the College of Engineering may deliver a new weapon in the daunting battle against recurring, potentially lethal bacterial infections such as staphylococcus and streptococcus. And the weapon—a modified form of sugar—is as widely available and cheap as it is effective, said Professor James Collins (BME, MSE, SE), a William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, coauthor of the study that appeared in the May 12 issue of Nature. “A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine work,” said the MacArthur “Genius Award” recipient, paraphrasing Mary Poppins. It does that, he said, by “waking up” stealthy, dormant bacteria that can lie in a state of metabolic hibernation for weeks or months. Collins and his team found that sugar dramatically boosts the effectiveness of so-called first-line antibiotics such as streptomycin and tetracycline. A sugar-antibiotics combination could be used to wipe out recurring, often debilitating infections such as those of the ear, throat, lungs and urinary tract, all of which can spread to the kidneys and other vital organs if left unchecked. With the Harry Potter-esque name “persisters,” the class of particularly feisty bacteria seem to respond initially to antibiotic treatment, then go into hiding, only to emerge weeks or months later more aggressive than they

were initially. These infections take a huge toll; Collins’s own mother has been hospitalized several times with recurring bouts of a stubborn, persister-like staphylococcus infection. In the lab, by adding sugar to antibiotics, the researchers found that within two hours, they were able to obliterate 99.9 percent of cultures of persister staphylococcus and E. coli, the culprit in most urinary tract infections. “Our goal was to improve the effectiveness of existing antibiotics rather than invent new ones, which can be a long and costly process,” said study first author Kyle Allison (BME’11), a PhD student in Collins’s lab.

A sugar-antibiotics combination could be used to wipe out recurring, often debilitating infections such as those of the ear, throat, lungs and urinary tract. The team also saw promising results after testing the antibioticsugar combination on E. coli infections in mice, and they discovered that the combination treatment inhibited the spread of bacterial infection to the kidneys of the mice. The most significant impact of the BU team’s research could be on tuberculosis (TB), a chronic bacterial infection of the lungs that annually kills approximately 1.7 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Collins and Allison plan to study whether sugar additives can improve the efficacy of TB drugs. —Susan Seligson This article previously appeared in BU Today.

Smarter Parking, Smarter City Imagine, just before your morning commute, you enter your office location and a price range into a GPS or mobile device and it returns directions to the vacant, appropriately priced parking spot that’s closest to your office, reserved just for you. This “smart parking” scenario may be just a click away, thanks to technology that Professor Christos Cassandras (ECE, SE) and systems engineering graduate student Yanfeng Geng (PhD’13) are developing. In early August, the research team completed its first live test of a preliminary version of a smart parking system in the lower level of the 730 Commonwealth Avenue garage beneath 15 St. Mary’s Street. In the test, a ceiling-mounted, computer-linked sensor network (see bottom image) continuously monitored parking spot activity and incoming reservation requests. Before entering the garage, a smartphone-equipped driver submitted an ID number and reservation request through a website (see top image). After validating the ID, the system updated a light indicator on the spot (and on a map displayed on the website) from green (unoccupied) to yellow (reserved), and, when the driver parked, to red (occupied). Once the driver departed, the system switched the light back to green and charged a parking fee to the driver’s account. From the moment he entered the garage, the driver navigated his way to his designated spot in only about five seconds. “In any major city center, about 30 percent of cars are cruising around looking for parking, wasting time—an average of 7.8 minutes, according to one estimate—and gas, and increasing air pollution and traffic congestion,” said Cassandras. “Our system could reduce all those problems and give cities a powerful traffic management tool.” smart parking photos by vernon doucette

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Moustakas Awarded $1.5 Million to Develop Handheld UV Laser Delivers 2011 Distinguished Scholar Lecture Professor Theodore Moustakas (ECE, MSE) received a $1.5 million, two-year subcontract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to help develop a handheld, electron-beam pumped semiconductor laser that would be the first to operate within the ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Because of its ultra-low emission wavelength and compact size, such a laser could be exploited for a wide range of defense and commercial applications, including non-line-of-sight communication in dense urban areas and other military theaters, via airborne particulates that propagate the signal; identification of biological and chemical substances used in potential terror attacks; and point-ofcare chemical analyses of blood and other bodily fluids. To develop this unprecedented laser technology, Moustakas and two coinvestigators, Associate Professor Roberto Paiella (ECE, MSE) and Assistant Professor Luca Dal Negro (ECE, MSE) will fabricate UV laser materials and component devices; Applied Physics Technologies and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory will design miniature electron guns to pump the laser, and Photon Systems, Inc., the prime contractor, will integrate everything into a prototype sized below one cubic inch. “We plan to make a laser structure that, when bombarded with an electron beam, produces pairs of electrons and holes (positively charged particles), which recombine and produce the UV light,” said Moustakas. “DARPA chose us because we have produced aluminum gallium nitride alloys in which up to 68 percent of those electron/hole pairs are converted into light, a conversion efficiency of about 1,000 times that of materials produced by other research groups.”

Using an atom-by-atom assembly technique called molecular beam epitaxy, the ECE research team will produce the core laser material, aluminum gallium nitride, and then construct component devices from multiple layers of the material. The researchers will evaluate the materials by directing electron beams at them in the lab.

“ We plan to make a laser structure that, when bombarded with an electron beam, produces pairs of electrons and holes (positively charged particles), which recombine and produce the UV light,” said Moustakas.

2011 Distinguished Scholar Lecture Selected for the 2011 College of Engineering Distinguished Scholar Award, Moustakas delivered the 2011 ENG Distinguished Scholar Lecture in March on the primary focus of his research, the fabrication of nitride semiconductors for high-performance visible and UV LEDs, and their application to solid-state lighting for general illumination and water, air and surface sterilization. Providing the same light for less than half the energy required by a compact fluorescent bulb and lasting up to 100,000 hours, a high-quality white-light LED would reduce U.S. energy costs by up to $20 billion and carbon dioxide emissions by 150 million tons annually, but today’s whitelight LEDs are inadequate for use in general lighting applications, Moustakas noted.

To produce white light that you can read by, blue, green and red LEDs must be combined—and making green LEDs is very inefficient and costly. Moustakas’s group has made significant progress in resolving this “green gap” by developing semiconductor particles called quantum dots that exhibit unique properties. Moustakas also described how LEDs that emit light within the UV-C range (200–290 nanometers of radiation frequency) of the ultraviolet spectum can damage microorganisms’ DNA, and thus be used for water, air and surface decontamination (e.g., in hospitals). Current UV-LEDs are energyinefficient, but Moustakas’s group has produced aluminum gallium nitride alloys that promise to significantly improve UVLED performance. Initiated in 2008, the annual Distinguished Scholar Lecture Series honors a senior faculty member engaged in outstanding, high-impact research at the College of Engineering. Professors Irving Bigio (BME), John Baillieul (ME, SE) and Malvin Teich (ECE) previously received the award.

Professor Theodore Moustakas (ECE, MSE) inspecting the growth of nitride-based semiconductor materials.

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Robolobster robots may be adapted to chaperone microbio-robots (mbrs).

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Cheap, adaptable to extreme environments and endowed with a natural ability to probe, analyze and modify their surroundings, microbiological organisms represent a promising line of attack for everything from oil spill cleanup to chemical weapons detection. But harnessing this capability will require some complex technological enhancements. Major challenges include getting the microbes to sense, process and respond to specific stimuli; equipping them to communicate their findings; and coordinating them to take collective action in real time. Now a research team led by Professor James Collins (BME, MSE, SE) proposes to surmount these challenges through an unprecedented combination of expertise in synthetic biology, computer engineering, control systems and robotics. The Office of Naval Research has awarded the team—which includes Assistant Professors Calin Belta (ME, SE) and Douglas Densmore (ECE) and leading researchers from Harvard University, MIT, Northeastern University and the University of Pennsylvania—with a highly competitive Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative grant of $7.5 million to pursue its project “Utilizing Synthetic Biology to Create Programmable Micro-Bio-Robots” over the next five years. The team’s goal is to develop technologies that enable swarms of microbiological organisms to execute desired tasks in a cohesive, efficient manner. Toward that end, the researchers plan to genetically alter microbes to detect, analyze and respond to explosives, toxins, metals, salinity, pH, temperature, light and other environmental signals; assemble groups of these

programmed microbes and support hardware into 10–100-micrometer-long hybrid “microbio-robots” (MBRs); and design 10–100-centimeter-long, powered “chaperone robots” that direct and monitor thousands of MBRs at close proximity and apprise human operators of their progress via wireless communication. “The idea is to engineer living organisms— in this case bacteria—that respond to external stimuli in the environment,” Densmore explained. “In response, they will generate a fluorescent or chemical signal that can be measured by the chaperone robots, which can produce signals as well that the bacteria can detect, so you have a two-way communication system. Finally, the chaperone robots can also communicate with human users.” Using techniques from synthetic biology, the researchers intend to modify bacterial DNA so that the cells can both sense and report on specific stimuli. For instance, the researchers may alter DNA within bacterial cells to produce a fluorescent protein that glows green in the presence of high pH, a signal that nearby chaperone robots can interpret and relay to human operators. The College of Engineering is making a substantial contribution to this effort. Collins will work on DNA modification; Densmore will optimize selection of DNA sequences used to enable microbial cells to sense and indicate the presence of specific environmental signals; and Belta will participate in the design and assembly of MBRs and chaperone robots, and efforts to coordinate their activity. “People have made robots that can respond to external stimuli, and synthetic biologists have made bacteria that can sense environmental conditions, but putting it all together in a highly coordinated and deterministic system is completely new,” said Densmore.

supervisor communication with supervisor chaperone - mbr communication

inter - mbr communication

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inter - chaperone communication

At the bottom level, engineered bacteria interact among each other mechanically (through the surface they adhere to) and chemically (through diffusion). At the middle level, MBRs communicate among themselves and with the chaperone robots locally via light or chemical inducers. At the top level, the chaperone robots communicate among themselves and with a supervisor through wireless communication.

Ramachandran Nets Over $2 Million to Boost Maritime Sensing and Communications Technologies One optical platform that has become the sensing technology of choice for military applications, atmospheric/weather predictions and satellite navigation is the optical analog to RADAR, also known as LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), which requires specialized, high-power laser beams. To adapt this technology for undersea applications such as aircraft-to-submarine or submarine-to-submarine communications links or underwater LIDARs, the U.S. Navy is considering using fiber lasers—already used in telecommunications, spectroscopy and medicine—but current fiber lasers are not up to the task. “The emerging consensus is to use very high-power lasers to produce beams powerful enough so that they can get from source to target, even with the high losses associated with salt water,” said Associate Professor Siddharth Ramachandran (ECE). Toward that end, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) has provided Ramachandran with $1.22 million to support a two-and-a-half-year project, “High-Power Blue-Green Lasers for Communications.” Such lasers would not only have to be high-powered but also have the capability to tune, on demand, from blue to green. That’s because deep seas appear blue in color while more shallow waters have a turquoise or green tinge. These lasers would need to be able to adjust to the color changes as marine vessels navigate different

Associate Professor Siddharth Ramachandran (ECE)

parts of the ocean. Ramachandran has developed a design capability that would allow the use of nonlinear optics inside fibers to generate high-power laser beams in colors not achievable by today’s technology. Over the past few years, Ramachandran has also developed a new class of fiber lasers that emit light in highly complex spatial patterns called Bessel beams. Recognizing their potential not only for underwater sensing but also for atmospheric and deep space applications, the ONR has given Ramachandran a $765,043 grant to support an additional three-year project, “Power-Scalable BlueGreen Bessel Beams.” “These beams possess several intriguing properties, ranging from the ability to propagate virtually

A high-power Bessel beam output from a fiber laser.

diffraction-free—countering conventional wisdom that states that a light beam spreads as it travels in space—to the ability to re-create itself past opaque objects,” Ramachandran said. The ONR has also awarded Ramachandran $297,200 for equipment purchases relevant to the execution of the aforementioned grants. —Rachel Harrington

Inspiration Ambassador Cassidy Blundell (BME’12, right) guides ninth graders from Boston Collegiate Charter High School as they test a zipline vehicle that they designed.

Inspiring the Next Generation of Engineers ENG Undergrads Share Excitement about the Field with K–12 Students Standing before more than 200 high school juniors in an auditorium one sunny afternoon in late May at Masconomet Regional High School in Topsfield, four Boston University College of Engineering undergraduates cofacilitated a game show, robot demos and a slideshow highlighting the impact of engineering on critical societal problems and exciting career opportunities for 21st-century engineers. As the hour-long, interactive event came to a close, they fielded questions for more than 20 minutes, leaving the teenagers—and their teachers—hungry for more. “The slides gave the students an idea of the broad range of projects engineers work on, and that was reinforced nicely by the student speakers,” Masconomet High physics/engineering teacher David Kurtz commented afterwards. “Many of our students envision engineers as nerds, but the BU students presented themselves very well and helped to dispel this notion.” The four BU students are among the College of Engineering’s first 17 Technology Innovation Scholars, high-performing undergraduates charged to share their passion for innovation and engineering with K–12 students in Greater Boston and in their hometowns. Since January, the TIS and a handful of other College of Engineering undergraduates—collectively known as the College’s “Inspiration Ambassadors”—have introduced more than 450 New England high school and middle school students to the joys and challenges of engineering, serving as mentors to robotics teams and facilitators of interactive presentations and design challenges. “Our Inspiration Ambassadors are engaging students in hands-on activities and giving them a big picture of what engineers do in solving society’s grand challenges in energy, health care and other areas—all while sharing an infectious enthusiasm for engineering,” said Gretchen Fougere, the College’s assistant dean of outreach & diversity, who is directing the outreach effort. “These exchanges bring engineering concepts to life while opening students to new opportunities.”

Three Outreach Channels Fifteen Inspiration Ambassadors (all TIS) began their outreach work by mentoring FIRST robotics teams at seven local high schools. Logging eight hours each week from January through early April, they shared their skills in programming, CAD and electronics design as well as their passion for innovation and engineering with about 170 students. As the Inspiration Ambassadors helped these FIRST teams prepare for the FIRST Regional Competition at BU in April, they cultivated fruitful working relationships with their younger counterparts. Three BU-mentored teams won awards, including FIRST’s most prestigious honor, the Regional Chairman’s Award. [See page 11 for more details.] Incorporating lessons from their mentoring experience, Inspiration Ambassadors went on to host or visit other New England schools, sharing their excitement for engineering and their own career plans with nearly 300 students. During these meetings, they co-facilitated interactive sessions on how engineering solves problems in our daily lives, and helped K–12 students apply what they learned in science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses to hands-on design challenges. As they continue to reach additional K–12 students, the Inspiration Ambassadors are also helping to develop curriculum modules, called “Innovations in a Box,” that focus on engineering grand challenges. “Boston needs this on-the-ground, regular mentoring and outreach so more students understand why math and science are important and appreciate the power and impact engineers have on society,” said Fougere. “If engineering is seen as the ‘new cool,’ then placing well-rounded engineering students, such as the Inspiration Ambassadors, in schools and on FIRST teams is a great way to inspire students to consider STEM careers.”

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ENG ENG ENG ENG ENG ENG

ENGi FALL 2011

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ENGi FALL 2011

Makeshift UAV Probes Secrets of Bat Flight New Data Could Lead to More Agile Autonomous Vehicles

Directed by ENG Research Engineer Kenneth Sebesta (shown above) and supported by recent graduates Dane Sarcone (ME’11) and Ryan Hunter (ECE’11), Boston University’s Intelligent Mechatronics Lab launched a two-pound UAV toward a dense cloud of Brazilian freetailed bats exiting caves in a remote stretch of South Texas. Thousands of the bats flapped harmlessly past the UAV as three ground-based, high-speed, infrared cameras and an onboard, 3-D, high-definition camera captured their flight paths. They conducted the experiment to determine how large numbers of bats can fly so close to one another and past unexpected obstacles without colliding—a capability they hope to translate into flight control systems that will significantly boost the agility of UAVs and other autonomous vehicles.

Infrared photo of UAV flying in bat swarm. Photos courtesy of Nathan Fuller

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PhD student George Daaboul (BME) with the fast, user-friendly pathogen detection platform (IRIS) he’s helping to develop.

BU Academy Wins Top Award at FIRST Regional Robotics Competition Ambling along a 27' by 54' surface at Agganis Arena in a game called LOGO MOTION™, robots built by more than 50 competing high school teams attempted to hang inflatable triangles, circles and squares on raised grids— as many and as high as they could in matches lasting little more than two minutes. Participating in this year’s Boston FIRST Regional Robotics Competition in April, the teams were judged not only for their robots’ performance but also for their own accomplishments. In that spirit, the Boston University Academy team— assisted for more than a decade by College of Engineering undergraduate mentors, lab space, machining equipment and financial support—received FIRST’s most prestigious honor, the Regional Chairman’s Award. The award recognizes the team that best embodies the organization’s mission: to inspire greater respect for science and technology in our culture and encourage more young people to pursue careers in those fields. According to Gretchen Fougere, College of Engineering assistant dean of outreach & diversity, the 31-student BU Academy team demonstrated “gracious professionalism,” extending help to their competitors during an intense build-season and regional competition. Over the years, student team members have helped supply training and materials to many area FIRST teams, worked in the College of Engineering U-Design summer camp and hosted robotics tournaments. “Winning the Chairman’s Award is the culmination of many years of hard work,” said team coach Gary Garber, a BU Academy physics teacher. “The award is recognition for all of our outreach efforts to the surrounding community.” below, The Boston University Academy team received FIRST’s most prestigious honor, the Regional Chairman’s Award.

BME Student Wins Health Care Prize The Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT), a consortium of Boston-area teaching hospitals and universities, has named PhD student George Daaboul (BME) the winner of the 2011 CIMIT Prize in Primary Healthcare, which provides seed funding to engineering students to develop innovative technologies aimed at improving health care delivery at the frontlines of medicine. Daaboul edged out nine other finalists from Yale, MIT, Johns Hopkins, Texas A&M, the University of California, The technology could Berkeley, Kansas State University and Northenable physicians to eastern University for the $150,000 award, which quickly pinpoint viral he’ll use to advance a diaginfections and reduce nostic platform that can perform a multi-pathogen unnecessary antiviral test that’s rapid and easy and antibiotic usage. enough to be used at the point of care. The technology could enable physicians to quickly pinpoint viral infections and reduce unnecessary antiviral and antibiotic usage. To develop the diagnostic platform, known as the interferometric reflectance imaging sensor (IRIS), Daaboul is advancing sensor and microfluidics technology in collaboration with his advisor, Professor Selim Ünlü (ECE, MSE), and a team of multidisciplinary researchers. The team is developing a new method that enables detection of single viral particles with far more sensitivity and specificity than existing detection methods and could enable clinicians to isolate individual virus particles of interest. “George’s work is a stellar example of innovative and multidisciplinary thinking in a broad collaboration with medical and international researchers,” said Ünlü. “His research will have a significant impact on viral diagnostics by advancing the technology beyond the state-of-the-art while making it inexpensive and widely accessible.”

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Engineering Health Care 12

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by Mark Dwortzan

From drug-coated stents that keep hearts beating to ultrafast CT scans that catch tumors early, the latest and greatest high-tech innovations are enabling dramatic improvements in the quality of health care across the globe. And while some people wonder if leading-edge technology is the main driver of escalating U.S. health care costs, most of the increase results from the excessive or inappropriate use of technology.

BME Professor Irving Bigio’s students, Katherine Calabro (left) and Lisa Cervia (right), align a laser system used to measure scattering properties of individual cells.

College of Engineering researchers are advancing new technologies that address disease at the molecular, cellular, tissue and patient levels. PHOTO BY KALMAN ZABarSKY

In reality, medical technology innovation that is deployed correctly will not only improve health outcomes but also make health care more affordable. Emerging higher-quality, lowercost solutions range from wireless medical monitoring sensors that cut down on doctor’s visits to sophisticated computer algorithms physicians can use to take a more preventative approach to patient care. At the College of Engineering, dozens of efforts are underway to boost the quality of health care, especially in ways that can cut costs in both developed and resource-limited countries. Major research goals include faster, cheaper DNA sequencing; targeted cancer treatments that minimize potentially lethal side effects; noninvasive detection and monitoring of cardiovascular disease; point-of-care diagnosis of infectious diseases; and advanced biomaterials for bone healing and injury repair. Anchored by its top-10-ranked Biomedical Engineering department, College of Engineering health care technology research routinely involves collaborations that span multiple departments and divisions and leverage the expertise of physicians and medical researchers from the BU School of Medicine, the BU Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine and other Boston-area medical research institutions. In their efforts to advance our fundamental understanding of biology and physiology in health and disease and translate these principles into highly effective and affordable clinical technologies, College of Engineering researchers are not only crossing departmental boundaries, but also working at every scale of biology—from molecule to cell to tissue to patient.

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Molecule

Schematic of a solidstate nanopore used for genome analyses (not to scale). The electrostatic potential near an approximately fivenanometer-wide, solidstate nanopore attracts negatively charged, double-stranded DNA molecules into the pore, which electronically detects the molecules as they traverse the pore. (Photo courtesy of Nature Nanotechnology)

Professor Amit Meller (BME, MSE) is advancing an ultrafast, low-cost DNA sequencing method that uses electricallybased nanoscale sensors with optical readout.

Molecule: Advancing Personalized Medicine When it comes to genetic testing, today’s DNA sequencing technology is not ready for prime time. In order to produce sufficient copies of target DNA molecules to enable sequencing devices to decipher the human genome, most scientists rely on time-consuming, expensive and error-prone DNA replication tools. Using such tools, sequencing a human genome can take more than a week and cost well over $5,000. But a new DNA sequencing method advanced by Associate Professor Amit Meller (BME, MSE) that exploits solid-state nanopores—tiny, nearly cylindrical, silicon nitride sensors that optically detect DNA molecules as they pass through the pore— requires far fewer DNA molecules than conventional technologies, is much faster and more accurate, and may ultimately enable clinicians to sequence an individual’s entire genome for as little as $100. This kind of ultra-fast, low-cost genomic sequencing and profiling may ultimately enable clinicians to quickly, precisely and affordably diagnose patients’ susceptibility to certain diseases and tolerance for selected drugs. Combining optical detection capability with the ability to analyze extremely long DNA molecules with superior sensitivity, and avoiding the use of enzymes whose activity limits the rate at which DNA sequences can be read, the team’s solidstate nanopores are uniquely positioned to compete with the most advanced DNA sequencing methods for accuracy, cost and speed. “We currently have the capability of reading out about 100 bases per second, which is already much faster than other

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Cell

The microscopic view of colon tissue (mucosa) as seen by the histopathologist. “The pink and violet colors are a result of specific staining for proteins and nucleic acids (DNA), respectively, allowing the pathologist to readily assess changes in cellular microstructures,” says Professor Irving Bigio (BME). “An evident difference between dysplastic (pre-malignant) and normal mucosa is the enlargement of the (violet-stained) cell nuclei and concomitant crowding.” “In this cartoon rendition (bottom) of a cell, light scatters off of cellular components (organelles) that are more dense (or less dense) than the intracellular fluid that surrounds them, just as light might scatter off of dust particles or tiny air bubbles suspended in a glass of water, or water droplets in a cloud,” Bigio explains. “The specific colors of light that scatter more strongly depend on the sizes and densities of those organelles. Thus, by studying the colors (spectrum) of light scattered from cells, one can derive information about the sizes and densities of cellular components, with relevant information regarding disease.”

commercial third-generation methods,” says Meller. “This is only the starting point for us, and we expect to significantly increase this rate.” Toward that end, a team of researchers from the BU College of Engineering and the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester obtained a nearly $4.2 million, four-year grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) in 2010 to continue work initiated in 2006. The project is one of 10 to receive funding from NHGRI that year under its “Revolutionary Sequencing Technology DevelopA new DNA sequencing ment—$1,000 Genome” method advanced by program. Professor Amit Meller Licensing intellectual may ultimately enable property from Boston University and Harvard clinicians to sequence University, Meller and his an individual’s entire collaborators also founded genome for as little NobleGen Biosciences in as $100. February 2010 to develop and commercialize nanopore sequencing based on the new method. Drawing on a prestigious advisory board’s expertise in clinical molecular diagnostics, DNA sequencing and bioinformatics, NobleGen aims to produce a working prototype by 2014—one that could be scaled to sequence 60 human genomes per day. “In addition to its speed and affordability, the key advantages of our system are its scalability, its simplicity and its

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Global Health Technologies Boost Local Self-Reliance ENG Research Empowers Resource-Limited Countries Around the World When Molly Keenan (BME’11) and her lab partners began adapting a noninvasive oral cancer detection system for use in resource-limited countries, they faced considerable challenges, from powering the optical spectroscopy device with a small rechargeable battery to making it compact enough to fit in a backpack. Even as the BME seniors overcame these challenges, they had no evidence that potential users would view their device as sufficiently affordable and easy to use, repair and carry around. But when they joined a fact-finding trip to Nicaragua over spring break, that evidence began to roll in. Keenan was one of 11 undergraduates— nine BME and two EE students—who traveled to the Central American nation with Professor Irving Bigio (BME), Associate Professor Catherine Klapperich (BME, MSE) and Professor Selim Ünlü (ECE, MSE) in March to learn about health care challenges and needs in developing countries. Representing four projects in a new BME senior design project global health initiative, the students also sought feedback from local health care professionals on the viability of their projects. “The intent of the trip was to expose students to what it’s really like to try to deliver health care in places with limited resources— to have them see some of those limitations for themselves, learn about the most critical technology needs and get the local community’s response to the technologies they’re working on,” says Bigio. The trip exceeded Keenan’s expectations. “It all is worth it when you meet the people who would use your device and they immediately ask ‘When can we get this?’” she says. “Going to Nicaragua showed me that even simple things are complicated without the right

resources, and that as a biomedical engineer, I can make devices that can improve a country’s health care system.” Spearheaded by Bigio, who runs the BME senior design program, and supported by Klapperich, Ünlü and Assistant Professor Muhammad Zaman (BME), the four senior design projects and Nicaragua trip reflect a growing emphasis at the College of Engineering on global health technology innovation. Two of the projects—a compact, easy-touse biosensor platform that provides a definitive, point-of-care diagnosis of dengue fever virus, and a robust platform that determines if a drug is counterfeit or substandard—were based at the Laboratory for Engineering Education & Development (LEED), an initiative Zaman launched in 2010 to engage students in problem-based learning centered on indemand, global health applications. Formed as a direct result of the Innovative Engineering Education Faculty Fellowship awarded by the Office of the Dean, LEED aims to strengthen health care systems in resource-limited countries. Toward that end, LEED students and faculty work closely with Boston University’s Center for Global Health & Development to develop robust, cheap and terrain-ready diagnostics and analysis toolkits that solve critical global health challenges and build local innovation and technical capacity. Zaman is spearheading a new United Nations initiative to improve health outcomes in Kenya, South Africa, Zambia and other African nations through a series of university-based training opportunities in the design, improvement and management of medical devices. “The idea is to create capacity for innovators—people who are not just fixing equipment or addressing small-scale chal-

ability to work from a very small sample,” says NobleGen CEO Frank Feist. In the past year, Meller has worked with Associate Professor Catherine Klapperich (BME, MSE) to upgrade the nanopore sequencing method with new technologies that process DNA molecules so that they’re easier to read, and decipher the identity of each nucleotide based on reflected laser light. “Given the aggressive research and development effort that’s now underway, I estimate that it will take less than five years to bring highly competitive and cheap DNA sequencing to the medical marketplace,” says Meller.

Right: Assistant Professor Muhammad Zaman (BME). Bottom: Laura Blaha and Ellen Reavey (both BME’11), who participated in the BME senior design project global health initiative. (Photo by Cydney Scott)

lenges, but who will come up with the next generation of drugs and technologies,” Zaman says. He aims to further that goal as faculty advisor for the BU chapter of Engineers Without Borders, which partners with developing communities to improve their quality of life through the implementation of environmentally sustainable, equitable and economical engineering projects. Recent efforts have focused on the community of Chirimoto, Peru where the group has worked toward a village-wide water filtration system. Like Zaman, Bigio seeks to build ongoing partnerships with institutions in developing countries that offer ENG undergraduates exciting opportunities to improve local and regional health care systems on the ground. “Our intent is to again identify projects with strong global health potential,” he says, “and possibly to return to Nicaragua—not to be medical tourists but to continue developing this year’s technologies and testing out new ones.”

Cell: Finding Cancer Early In the 1990s Professor Irving J. Bigio (BME) pioneered a noninvasive optical method, elastic scattering spectroscopy (ESS), to detect subcellular structural changes in tissue associated with the onset of many major cancers—critical information that pathologists can only obtain with a microscope after a surgical biopsy (tissue sample) is taken. The method focuses on the epithelial layer of cells on the targeted organ, since 85 percent of all cancers begin in the ultrathin surface layer of cells that define how that organ works. To gather information with ESS, a fiber-optic probe is passed through an endoscope or catheter. When the probe’s optical

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TISSUE

fiber shines white light on the colon or another organ of interest, an adjacent optical fiber collects the light scattered back from the tissue. Software then compares the spectrum scattered from the tissue with spectral signatures in a stored diagnostic algorithm to pinpoint early signs of cancer. Based on clinical studies with hundreds of patients by collaborators such as Dr. Satish Singh (BU School of Medicine), the method shows great promise as a low-cost, low-maintenance, user-friendly clinical tool for diagnosis of early stage colon, esophageal, oral, bladder and other cancers in hollow organs, and recent research indicates that ESS could also provide timely, critical information to cancer surgeons. A case in point is breast cancer surgery. When clinicians seek to determine whether breast cancer has metastasized, they examine the first in the chain of lymph nodes located in the armpit, which drains the breast tissue. In most countries, they typically locate and surgically remove the node during the mastectomy procedure, then wait two days for a pathologist’s report. If the node is cancer-free, then a partial mastectomy or lumpectomy is sufficient; otherwise, a second surgery is required: a radical mastectomy (which entails the removal of lymph nodes from the armpit to the breast)—a far riskier procedure. This is where ESS can help. “Rather than waiting to get a pathologist’s report about the lymph node two days later, we can tell in real-time, during the surgery, if the lymph node is metastatic or not by examining it with an ESS probe at the beginning of a mastectomy procedure,” says Bigio. “Then the surgery can be conducted accordingly without delay.” ESS may also guide thyroid cancer treatment by reducing unnecessary surgeries through more accurate diagnosis. In a recent collaboration with BUSM surgical oncologist Jennifer Rosen and thyroid specialist Stephanie Lee, Bigio has developed and is clinically testing a new device that integrates ESS into the fine needle aspiration (FNA) diagnostic tool that is typically used to probe the thyroid gland. Without ESS, the FNA returns one of three results: benign, malignant or indeterminate, and in the latter two cases, surgeons usually remove the thyroid—even though only 20 percent of indeterminate biopsies are shown to be cancerous upon final pathology. But the use of ESS could change all that, saving countless patients from complications and lifelong hormone replacement that thyroid removal entails. “By including an ESS probe in this little needle, we hope to reduce the number of unnecessary thyroidectomies,” says Bigio.

Tissue: Targeting Tumors Treatment options for solid, cancerous tumors include surgery, which is invasive and often requires a lengthy recovery, and chemotherapy, which is damaging to healthy tissue and can compromise the immune system and produce other debilitating side effects. Taking a vastly different approach, Assistant Professor Tyrone Porter (ME) has developed two far less toxic techniques that could find their way into clinical practice in

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“Acoustic energy transmitted by a focused ultrasound transducer (right) can propagate through superficial tissue and heat deep-tissue sites in a localized manner,” says Assistant Professor Tyrone Porter (ME). “Using this technology, it is possible to kill solid tumors via irreparable thermal damage or trigger the release of chemotherapeutic agents from temperaturesensitive drug carriers within solid tumors without damaging healthy tissue.”

Illustration of the response of a novel polymer-modified temperature-sensitive drug carrier. When heated above a threshold temperature (LCST), polymers inserted in the surface of the carrier undergo a structural change, which leads to the disruption of the coating and release of the contents.

the next five to ten years. Both combine nanotechnology and focused ultrasound to kill localized malignancies rapidly. Developed in collaboration with BU School of Medicine oncologist David C. Seldin, the first technique encapsulates chemotherapeutic drugs in polymer-modified, temperaturesensitive liposomes (small, lipid membrane-enclosed sacks), and triggers drug release with ultrasound-mediated heating. The liposomes are designed to accumulate within solid tumors—and nowhere else—after being injected into the bloodstream. The drugs are delivered by spherical carriers with an average diameter of 100 to 300 nanometers, an ideal size for dispersing through leaky tumor vasculature and accumulating at the tumor site. “The idea is to sequester, package and localize the drug so that it’s not exposed to healthy cells and tissues, and use polymers to reduce the threshold temperature needed to release the drugs,” says Porter. A focused ultrasound transducer shaped like a magnifying glass is used to elevate the temperature four or five degrees above body temperature locally within the tumor for about five minutes. The applied heat disrupts the liposome shell, thereby releasing the drug into the tumor. The heat-activated liposomes may be used to eliminate tumors, shrink them sufficiently so they can be surgically removed or release additional chemotherapeutic drugs after surgery to help prevent cancer recurrence. Porter’s second technique, developed in collaboration with Nathan McDannold, research director of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School Focused Ultrasound Laboratory, is to produce liquid carbon-fluorine nanodroplets designed to accumulate within solid tumors after being injected into the bloodstream. The nanodroplets can then be used to enable clinicians to safely “burn off” the tumors.

amit meller and tyrone porter PHOTOS BY KALMAN ZABarSKY

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Amit Meller (BME, MSE)

Tyrone Porter (ME)

Ioannis Paschalidis (ECE, SE)

“Once localized at the tumor site, the nanodroplets can be vaporized noninvasively with high-intensity focused ultrasound pulses,” Porter explains. “The resultant vapor bubbles are used to increase the absorption of focused ultrasound at the tumor site. As a result, the amount of acoustic power and exposure time required for destroying the tumor via thermal damage is significantly reduced.” Vaporization of the nanodroplets and the activity of the resultant bubbles can be monitored through the use of magnetic resonance (MR) thermometry (which can measure temperature changes within a tenth of a degree Celsius), which could be exploited for image-guided ultrasound therapy of solid tumors. Toward that end, Porter is also incorporating MR imaging contrast agents in his chemotherapy drug-releasing liposomes. “We are assessing the amount of chemotherapy released from temperature-sensitive liposomes in tumors when heated with MRguided focused ultrasound,” says Porter. “Ultimately, the goal is to develop a system that combines ultrasound-triggerable particles and MRI for noninvasive image-guided localized drug delivery.”

Patient: Enabling Lifelong, Proactive Care Despite spending about $2 trillion annually on health care, the U.S. recently ranked lowest among 19 industrialized countries in its rate of “preventable” deaths. But medical experts believe that a more proactive, data-driven health care management strategy could yield dramatic improvements in health outcomes and significantly lower costs. To that end, Professor Ioannis Paschalidis (ECE, SE), Daniel Newman, BU School of Medicine assistant professor and Boston Medical Center (BMC) chief medical information officer, and Shiby Thomas, BMC director of enterprise analytics, are pursuing a comprehensive and systematic approach to intelligently processing electronic health records (EHRs) and directing physician attention to preventing serious medical conditions. Using algorithms that assess patients for disease risk and trigger physician actions based on their risk classification, and wireless body sensors that dispatch medical

Ioannis Paschalidis PHOTO COURTESY OF Ioannis Paschalidis

information to the clinic in near real-time, the researchers’ proposed system could enable the U.S. health care system to operate far more efficiently. “There is much more data being collected in health care today, and it’s time for that data to be put to use to increase the quality and reduce the cost of health care,” says Paschalidis. In consultation with his collaborators, he plans to apply data mining and optimization techniques to electronic, clinical practice data from the Boston Medical Center and associated insurance claims to produce algorithms that assess patients’ health risks and the likely trajectory of their future health care needs. The algorithms will place patients in different risk-based clusters, provide a predictive model and recommended set of actions (such as tests, monitoring with sensors, and visits to a primary care physician) specific to each cluster, and health management approaches for specific chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease. In addition, they will include anomaly detection techniques to shift a patient to a higher- or lowerrisk cluster based on new data. Information from wireless, wearable sensors will also be incorporated into the algorithms to trigger timely clinical responses. For example, a blood glucose level monitoring sensor could transmit readings for a recently hospitalized diabetic patient to the patient’s clinic, where software can perform a preliminary assessment of his or her condition. If the software finds that the patient’s “There is much risk has increased, it could more data being automatically schedule a doctor collected in health appointment. care today, and it’s “The rate of rehospitalization time for that data is significant,” says Paschalidis. to be put to use to “If we can use electronic health data to assess patient risk and increase the quality take preventative measures, we and reduce the cost can reduce that rate, decreasof health care,” ing overall costs and improving says Paschalidis. health outcomes.” While existing data-driven health care management strategies typically rely on insurance claims and focus on cost assessment, this research combines insurance claims with electronic health records and sensor data and triggers actions that can save not only money but lives. From the molecule to the whole patient, health care technologies emerging from College of Engineering research promise to do nothing less—quite possibly as part of a comprehensive suite of state-of-the-art medical solutions. One can imagine, for instance, a scenario in which a patient’s genetic profile, obtained from Amit Meller’s DNA sequencing technology, is fed into Ioannis Paschalidis’ algorithms, yielding a more accurate prediction of the patient’s long-term health risks and a more effective treatment plan. Whether used in isolation or in a broader health care management system, these technologies appear destined to boost both patients and profits—and there’s much more to come.

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RE S E A RC H

Rapid, chip-scale, low-cost detection of viruses and other pathogens is critically important to treating infectious diseases, curbing the spread of pandemics and responding to potential bio-warfare agents, but today’s bio-detection technology falls short in many ways. Most diagnostic tests for bacterial and viral diseases are too expensive, time- and labor-intensive to be completed at point-of-care, leading many physicians to overprescribe antibiotics and miss opportunities to contain potentially lethal viral outbreaks. But a major interdisciplinary research effort now underway at the College of Engineering (ENG) could change all that. In collaboration with researchers at the Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and with support from the BU Photonics Center, ENG faculty members and graduate students are advancing groundbreaking, nanoscale techniques to detect and diagnose infectious diseases quickly, easily and inexpensively. “What’s unique about our efforts to advance bio-detection capability is the ongoing collaboration we have with renowned infectious disease experts and access to experimental facilities at the School of Medicine,” says Professor Selim Ünlü (ECE, MSE). “The novel technologies we’re developing are applicable to a wide range of diseases.” In pursuing this work, ENG researchers have helped place the Photonics Center at the forefront of groundbreaking research and technology development that addresses critical national defense needs in bio-detection. As a result, on March 1 the National Science Foundation approved the start of an Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Biophotonic Sensors and Systems (CBSS) at the Photonics Center and the University of California at Davis Center for Biophotonics Science and Technology aimed at accelerating technology transfer and boosting U.S. industrial competitiveness in this area. One of 50 such cooperative research centers across the country, CBSS is the only one focused on biophotonic sensors.

ENG Researchers

Advance Powerful Biosensor Platforms Breakthroughs Could Bolster Point-of-Care Diagnosis of Infectious Diseases

by mark dwortzan

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RESEARC H

Nanotechnology-Based Biosensors

absorption signals received from protein molecules by a factor of up to In projects organized by the Photonics Center, Ünlü and Assistant Profes100,000, thereby enabling studies from small samples often available sor Hatice Altug (ECE, MSE) have already produced distinct biosensor from biological specimens. platform prototypes that show great promise in pathogen detection capability. Biosensor platform development at the College of Engineering spans all Developed by Ünlü’s research group in collaboration with Professor departments and reflects a wide range of pathogen detection and sample Bennett Goldberg (Physics, MSE) and the MITRE Corporation, the Interferopreparation strategies. metric Reflectance Imaging Sensor (IRIS) is a highly sensitive nanoparticle For example, Associate Professor Kamil Ekinci (ME, MSE) and Associate device that can pinpoint single virus and other pathogen particles quickly, Professor Luca Dal Negro (ECE, MSE) are advancing platforms that involve accurately and affordably. The shoebox-sized, battery-operated device is light-matter interaction. the first not only to provide high-throughput detection of single nanoparEkinci is designing diving-board-like cantilevers to detect trace ticles of interest, but also to measure their amounts of pathogens in a fluid. The textured surfaces size—an important factor in confirming the of these special cantilevers mitigate identity of a suspected pathogen. the inherent stickiness of water and “Our results show highly sensitive and other fluids, thus optimizing sigspecific virus detection with a simple surface nals received from any pathogens chemistry and minimal sample preparaENG faculty members and onboard. If a pathogen attaches to tion on a quantitative, label-free, interone of Ekinci’s vibrating, nanoscale ferometric platform,” explains Ünlü, who graduate students are diving boards, the board will become has collaborated with microbiologist John advancing groundbreaking, heavier and its resonant frequency will Connor (BUSM) to demonstrate the technolnanoscale techniques to decrease. By bouncing light or radio ogy. “Detection was rapid, repeatable, and detect and diagnose waves off these boards, he can detect demonstrates the potential of this system for infectious diseases quickly, this reduced frequency and thus detect inexpensive clinical and field-capable pathothe pathogen. gen diagnostics.” easily and inexpensively. Using precisely engineered arrays To detect and size pathogens, IRIS shines of metallic and silicon nanoparticles light from multicolor LED sources sequentially to boost the intensity of optical fields on nanoparticles bound to the sensor surface, localized on two-dimensional surfaces, which consists of a silicon dioxide layer atop Dal Negro is developing a new platform a silicon substrate. Interference of light for nanoscale optical sensing that reflected from the sensor surface is altered could be used to detect molecules, by the presence of the particles, producing a proteins and harmful bacteria/viruses distinct signal that reveals the size of each with greater reliability and lower error particle. Configured with a large surface area, rates than current technology. the device can capture the telltale interferoTwo other ENG researchers, Associate metric responses, in parallel, of up to a million nanoparticles. Professor Catherine Klapperich (ME, MSE) In a separate collaboration with Professor John Connor, Altug’s research and Research Assistant Professor Mario Cabodi (BME), are incorporating microgroup has introduced a different kind of biosensor that rapidly detects live fluidic technology in biosensor platforms. viruses from biological media with little to no sample preparation. Klapperich is developing a robust, inexpensive, handheld plastic chip Altug’s highly sensitive biosensor platform is the first to detect intact that extracts DNA using nanoparticles and could enable rapid, point-ofviruses by exploiting plasmonic nanohole arrays, or arrays of apertures with care diagnostics for infectious diseases such as influenza without the diameters of about 250 to 350 nanometers on metallic films, that transmit need for electricity or refrigeration. Integrating sample preparation, light more strongly at certain wavelengths. When a live virus binds to the amplification and detection, this microfluidic chip could be a major step sensor surface, the effective refractive index in the close vicinity of the forward in facilitating molecular diagnostics in developing countries. sensor changes, causing a detectable shift in the resonance frequency of the Cabodi is working on the integration of a microfluidic sample preparation light transmitted through the nanoholes. The magnitude of that shift reveals chip with interferometric biosensors. the presence and concentration of the virus in the solution. The latter two projects reflect a growing capability and interest “Our platform can be easily adapted for point-of-care diagnostics to among College of Engineering bio-detection researchers to build intedetect a broad range of viral pathogens in resource-limited clinical settings grated, point-of-care systems that combine sample preparation with the at the far corners of the world, in defense and homeland security applicavarious sensor platforms they’ve been developing. tions as well as in civilian settings such as airports,” says Altug. (In a “We’re also focused on adapting these systems to detect diseases in related development, she recently incorporated plasmonic nanohole arrays resource-limited settings,” says Ünlü. “For instance, we are developing in a prototype for a low-cost, portable, easy-to-use, point-of-care diagnossingle-virus detection technologies so that HIV, dengue and other distic platform to detect blood or saliva-based proteins that serve as biomarkeases can be identified at remote clinics, as well as compact systems for ers for selected cancers, Alzheimer’s disease, allergens and other illnesses.) DNA extraction so that samples can be shipped without refrigeration for Altug earlier advanced a spectroscopic biosensor platform that uses further diagnostic testing.” an array of gold “nano-antennas” to amplify molecule-specific infrared

Detection and Integration

BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

PRO FILE

A Disciplined

Mind:

LEAP Alum Transforms Organizations across the Globe BY Mark Dwortzan

Like the other nontraditional students and working professionals in the College of Engineering’s Late Entry Accelerated Program (LEAP) inaugural class in the early 1980s, Veronica Li-Frankenstein (MFG MS’83) faced a steep challenge: master a core set of undergraduate engineering courses before moving on to a regular master’s degree program. Coming in with no engineering experience—she had a bachelor’s degree in French, a master’s degree in applied linguistics and extensive work experience teaching English as a second language—and as a parent of two young children, Li-Frankenstein had limited time to do homework and get up to speed in college-level math and science. But she rose to the challenge by studying math and science tutorial videos, cranking out problem sets at four in the morning and teaming up with more knowledgeable fellow students in her introductory courses. In the process, she acquired an engineer’s mindset. “As I progressed through my first semester, I found that the study of engineering reformatted my brain to think in a very disciplined way,” she recalls. “I learned to look not only at the details, but also at the overall picture—i.e., what are you trying to achieve and what are the alternatives?” In a career spanning three decades and four continents, Li-Frankenstein has applied her disciplined mind to manifold problems in engineering, engineering management, supply chain management and procurement. Fueled by her manufacturing engineering degree, several MBA-track courses at the School of Management and fluency in Chinese and French, she has improved product quality, redesigned business processes and negotiated multimillion-dollar technology contracts for major nonprofits and firms across the globe. Upon graduation, Li-Frankenstein took to the factory floor, working as a manufacturing engineer on the production of the first operational Apache helicopters. She then spent 11 years at Motorola Semiconductors, where she reengineered circuit boards and worked in manufacturing, product development and strategic planning in Arizona; developed a corporate-wide strategic plan at Motorola’s Tokyo headquarters; and oversaw capital planning, procurement, scheduling and IT operations both at the firm’s semiconductor wafer manufacturing plant in Arizona and Asia-Pacific division in Hong Kong. Li-Frankenstein remained in Hong Kong for her next job with Bausch & Lomb as its first director Photo courtesy of Veronica Li-Frankenstein

of supply chain management for the Asia-Pacific region before moving to Denmark to become Supply Division director at UNICEF. In overseeing the development of health care facilities and the procurement of medical equipment and vaccines for malaria, polio and other diseases in resourcelimited countries, she applied her disciplined, engineer’s mindset to optimize the spending of UNICEF dollars. Responsible for the annual purchase of $600 million in supplies and emergency equipment—from vaccines, medical suites and school supplies to power stations, emergency rations and well-digging machinery—she and her team changed the practice of awarding contracts to the lowest bidder to choosing on the basis of enduring value. Combining calculations of lifecycle quality, replacement cost and appropriateness of proposed technology for receiving countries, they insured that UNICEF’s dollars would have a sustainable impact. A key member of the UN’s Procurement Task Force, Li-Frankenstein propagated this “bigpicture” approach to decision-making across the organization. “Veronica introduced a practical, rational way of looking at the issues,” says Henry Nardi, who chaired a UN working group to revise UN procurement policy. “She and a couple of others helped counter the old guard position.” Li-Frankenstein views this achievement as a collective effort. “In order to get something done, you need a boss who understands your vision and a group of people with talents in multiple disciplines,” she says. “Throughout my career, the people I’ve worked with really contributed to whatever successes I could claim.” So has Li-Frankenstein’s family, which literally followed her around the world. She and her husband John Frankenstein, a U.S. diplomat and university professor, coordinated their international careers from Japan to Denmark, and her two children studied at international schools. Today Li-Frankenstein lives with her husband in the New York metropolitan area, where she works as a mediator and sits on several corporate boards. Though the field presents several new challenges, her mind, disciplined as ever, is up to the task. “The brain keeps making new cells no matter how old you are or what your previous discipline was,” she says.

Veronica Li-Frankenstein

“ I learned to look not only at the details, but also at the overall picture—i.e., what are you trying to achieve and what are the alternatives?”

E n g i n ee r fall 2 011 www.bu.edu/eng

igniting the

bme alum lewis chappelear helps high school students discover engineering

flame BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

PRO FILE

by mark dwortzan

In a Los Angeles-area high school classroom,

40 juniors and seniors of widely varying achievement levels and learning styles form small groups to design and build a race car out of rubber bands, paper and binder clips, corrugated cardboard, wooden wheels and sticks, straws, pennies, tape, glue, string and pill boxes. As they tweak their designs to maximize speed, distance and aesthetic appeal, the students become intimately acquainted with torque, acceleration, friction, kinetic energy and other physics concepts—often without realizing it. “Any project we do has to be accessible to someone who doesn’t speak English and someone else who got a perfect score on their SAT,” says the course instructor, Lewis Chappelear (BME’95), who describes his classroom as an “organized circus.” A 2008 California Teacher of the Year and national Teacher of the Year finalist, Chappelear teaches project-based physics, robotics and computer-aided design in the School of Engineering and Design (SED), a small learning community he founded in 2003 at Monroe High School, a year-round school with about 3,400 students. The program exposes participants to a variety of engineering and technologybased careers through project-based learning, online college courses, internships with local aerospace firms and mentoring from professional engineers. Many of the 200-plus students in the program require special education services, speak little English or come from impoverished, crime-ridden neighborhoods, but Chappelear focuses on making a personal connection with each individual, challenging his students at their level, and helping them discover their talents and passions. His efforts have clearly paid off: Several alums have gained acceptance to university programs in engineering and allied fields, and landed jobs with high-tech organizations such as the Boeing Company and Jet Propulsion Laboratory. At a place like Monroe High, this is no small accomplishment. “After a student shared with me that he had witnessed a

shooting over the weekend, I recently asked a class, ‘How many of you have seen someone get shot?’ and half the kids raised their hands,” Chappelear observes. “Just having them choose to go to college is a big thing.”

Finding His Own Career Path When Chappelear decided to study engineering in college, he dove in blindly. Having never met an engineer while growing up in a small town in Ohio, all he knew was that engineering was a good career path for kids who excelled in math and science. Not until working on his senior design project in biomedical engineering at BU did he feel he understood exactly what engineering was about. “This was the first real research project I ever did,” Chappelear recalls. “We conducted experiments, collected and analyzed data, wrote a paper and presented our work in front of a group. After going through that process, I thought, ‘Why was this the first time I was doing this? Why did I never do this in high school?’” Chappelear tabled that thought as he earned a master’s degree in mechanical engineering at Columbia University in 1995 and ran a Toronto restaurant for the next four years. Envisioning a return to engineering in a warmer climate one frigid New Year’s eve, he subsequently closed the restaurant and moved to Los Angeles intending to pursue another engineering degree at UCLA. To make ends meet, Chappelear secured an Internet-advertised job teaching troubled youths in a juvenile detention center in down-

Photos courtesy of Lewis Chappelear E n g i n ee r fall 2 011 www.bu.edu/eng

PROFIL E

“ my philosophy on teaching is very simple: i make emotional connections with every student and make the learning relevant. i truly believe that everything in the classroom has to be interdisciplinary.”

town L.A. On his first day, as officials escorted him past groups of young criminal offenders in brightly colored uniforms, he felt woefully unprepared for the job. But after working with students for a few hours, he knew he had discovered his true calling. After emerging with a teaching certificate in math, physics and electronics two years later, Chappelear began teaching algebra at Monroe High School. Still bent on using his engineering background, he convinced the administration to let him create an electronics course the following year. When L.A. Unified School District officials seekChappelear’s teaching led ing to spend federal funds earmarked Jason Liu, now a University of for career-oriented technical educaCalifornia, Berkeley sophomore tion became aware of the course, studying engineering, to redefine they pulled Chappelear out of class his life’s ambition. one morning and offered him the “My aspiration, ever since I was opportunity to start an engineering eight, was to become an ophthalprogram at the school. mologist,” says Liu. “However, Mr. He accepted on the spot. Chappelear inspired me to realize That fall Chappelear launched that for my career I must do some“the Robotics Academy,” in which thing with passion, and by the end students learned to build robots and Chappelear and students pose with their award-winning robot of my first semester at Berkeley, I that competed at the vex world championship this past spring. enter them in competitions. Two found that for me, that was engiyears later, the Robotics Academy neering, particularly robotics.” Liu morphed into the School of Engineering and Design, a three-year now plans to pursue graduate studies in robotics with a focus on program that combines required courses with engineering elecmedical devices such as prosthetics and robot-aided surgery. tives under the guidance of a dedicated faculty. Chappelear attributes the success of alumni like Herrera and Liu not only to technological savvy but also to the “soft skills” Introducing Engineering Early that he emphasizes in the program, such as communication, As the program coalesced, Chappelear sought to give his students teamwork, openness to challenges, making a good first impression a taste of the College of Engineering senior design experience. He and thinking outside the box. worked with local aerospace firms to offer students internships, “At the School of Engineering and Design, we work with a lot mentors, classroom speakers and plant visits; linked students of engineering companies that can’t find enough people who can to online courses at California State University-Northridge; and work on a team, think critically and be creative,” he says. redesigned his classroom so small groups could rotate through 18 Much More than a Nine-to-Five Job hands-on stations covering different aspects of engineering, from Chappelear’s commitment to his students goes far beyond his robot design to research paper writing. SED responsibilities. He also facilitates a weekly afterschool “Everybody is good at something, but a lot of people spend program for at-risk students grappling with drug addiction, grief their entire lives not knowing what that is, so we provide our and other personal crises; administers an early morning computer students with a wide variety of classroom activities and exposure lab and teaches in an afterschool tutoring program; coaches the to working engineers in the community,” says Chappelear. robotics team; organizes the school’s annual talent show; and sits Through coursework and an internship at the Jet Propulon the advisory council of the San Fernando Valley Economic sion Laboratory (JPL), SED alumna Diana Herrera discovered a Alliance. On top of all that, he is pursuing a PhD in education. talent for web development, which led to a bachelor’s degree in Despite the long hours and modest pay, Chappelear has no computer science from California State University, Northridge and regrets. a full-time job developing websites at JPL. “Becoming an engineer, moving to suburbia and working as a “Both the program and Mr. Chappelear inspired me to learn manufacturing engineer was never appealing to me,” he says. more about technology,” says Herrera. “The experience exposed “I’ve found I can impact kids’ lives and hopefully make their me to technologies I didn’t know about and allowed me to learn future a whole lot better.” them at my own pace.”

BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

faculty

> developing an imaging system to track the aurora borealis.

p.29 Donald Wroblewski Appointed Associate Dean for Educational Initiatives

Dean Lutchen Elected President of National Biomedical Engineering Institute College of Engineering Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen was elected president of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) at the group’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C., on February 22. Dean Lutchen will lead the nonprofit organization’s mission to advance public understanding of medical and biological engineering and honor significant achievements in the field. “It is a great pleasure to see such a talented individual take leadership of this dynamic organization,” said Lutchen’s predecessor Thomas C. Skalak, vice president for research at the University of Virginia. “We look forward to Dr. Lutchen’s leadership and his ability to help AIMBE realize its vision to help the public understand the value of medical and biological engineering innovation to benefit society.” During his yearlong term as president, Lutchen will chair the AIMBE board of directors, which is elected by the institute’s College of Fellows, a body of distinguished academic leaders at major universities—including professors recognized for their contributions to teaching, research and innovation—as well as leaders in industry. AIMBE fellows have helped to revolutionize medicine, engineering and related fields

that enhance and extend the lives of people all over the world. AIMBE represents 90 university programs in medical and biological engineering, corporations and 16 professional societies engaged in advancing medical and biological engineering. The organization advocates for public policies that facilitate progress in medical and biological research and for the development of products and services that benefit the public. “I am honored to be elected president of AIMBE, an organization that shares my belief that medical and biological engineers should play a critical role in advancing society,” Dean Lutchen said. “I look forward to helping facilitate policies and innovations that help people.” College of Engineering dean since 2006, Lutchen joined the Biomedical Engineering Department in 1984 and became its chair in 1998. During his eight years as chair, he led BME into the top echelon of biomedical engineering departments nationally. His research focuses on advancing methods for probing the structure-function relations governing lung disease, especially asthma. He has written more than 120 peer-reviewed journal articles.

Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen has appointed Associate Professor Donald Wroblewski (ME) as the new associate dean for educational initiatives. Wroblewski will be responsible for overseeing, implementing, catalyzing and designing new and existing College-wide and cross-college or school educational initiatives that involve innovation in curriculum design or course delivery. In this capacity, he will oversee professional education—including the Master of Engineering (MEng) Certificate and Distance Learning programs—and the Late Entry Accelerated Program (LEAP), and explore ways to enhance their content and expand their enrollments. He will also be responsible for educational initiatives at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. “Associate Dean Wroblewski has a wealth of impressive experience that prepares him to fill this crucial position,” said Lutchen. “I am confident that Don’s passion and educational experiences will propel these current programs to the next level and create new interdisciplinary opportunities for the College.” “I am thrilled to be joining the College’s leadership team,” said Wroblewski. “This is a unique opportunity to shape our educational programs at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and Associate Dean for Educational Initiatives Donald Wroblewski

—Michael Seele

DEAN LUTCHEN PHOTO BY VERNON DOUCETTE E n g i n ee r fall 2 011 www.bu.edu/eng

faculty to build strategic partnerships within the University and with alumni and industry. As a top engineering college, BU’s excellence in research should be matched by excellence in curriculum and pedagogy, and the creation of this position reaffirms the College’s commitment to that goal.” Educational initiatives expected to fall within Wroblewski’s purview include technology innovation and curriculum enhancements; the Innovative Engineering Education Faculty Fellow (IEEFF) program; contextual teaching of calculus, physics and chemistry that amplifies quality and retention; degree or course creation with other schools; concentration enhancements; student design competitions; and interdisciplinary senior projects both within the College of Engineering and also engaging students from the Schools of Management and Public Health. A co-recipient of the inaugural IEEFF Award in 2009, Wroblewski has introduced several innovations to the College’s undergraduate engineering curriculum. Most notably, he spearheaded an initiative called Coordinate Application Threads (CATs), in which he implemented specific application examples in courses throughout the ME program to provide a systemslevel view of the basic core concepts and to increase students’ retention. He has also transformed the aerospace senior design course, introducing an activelearning model that requires students to review lecture notes prior to class so that class time can be devoted to discussions and challenging, team-based exercises. A College of Engineering faculty member for more than two decades, Wroblewski has held several leadership positions in the Mechanical Engineering department (formerly AME), including associate chair for Aerospace Engineering Undergraduate Programs, faculty director of the Distance Learning Program and coordinator for Aerospace Engineering Senior Design. At the College level, he serves as co-associate chair for Undergraduate Studies and on the Provost’s Faculty Advisory Board on Distance Education, and was a past board member for the Center for Innovation & Excellence in Teaching. —Mark Dwortzan

Dean’s Catalyst Awards Energize Early-Stage Projects College of Engineering research projects in nanofluidics, integrated circuit design, datadriven health care management and Terahertz radiation generation are set to take off, thanks to the Dean’s Catalyst Awards (DCA) grant program. This year, four research teams will each receive up to $50,000 in DCA funding to develop novel techniques to investigate these topics.

This year’s DCA-winning projects promise to improve the nation’s health care, defense, information and communications systems: • Associate Professor Kamil Ekinci and Assistant Professor Harold Park (both ME, MSE) will study the ability of graphene, the world’s only known 2D material, to increase fluid flow through nanoscale channels, work that could improve the performance of nanofluidic devices and lab-on-a-chip technologies used in biological and chemical sensing, homeland security and health care.

• ECE Assistant Professors Ajay Joshi and Bobak Nazer plan to develop a new approach to digital VLSI (very large scale integrated circuit) design that tolerates errors at the device level while maintaining global reliability at ASSISTANT PROFESSOR HAROLD PARK (LEFT) AND ASSOCIATE the architectural level. Their goal PROFESSOR KAMIL EKINCI (RIGHT) WIll STUDY THE ABILITY OF GRAPHENE to improve the performance of nanofluidic devices is to develop an architecture that and lab-on-a-chip technologies. exploits feedback and redundancy to maintain nearly the same endEstablished by Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen to-end reliability and performance as today’s in 2007 and organized by a faculty commitdesigns while consuming much less energy. tee, the annual Dean’s Catalyst Awards program encourages early-stage, innovative, interdisci• Professors Roberto Paiella and Anna Swan plinary projects that could spark new advances (both ECE, MSE) propose an entirely novel in a variety of engineering fields. By providing way of generating Terahertz (THz) radiacritical seed funding, the awards give full-time tion that is not limited by intrinsic material faculty the opportunity to generate initial properties. They plan to develop a “tabletop proof-of-concept results that could help secure cyclotron source” of THz light that exploits external funding. the excellent electron transport properties Several DCA recipients have done just that. of graphene to produce radiation in the For example, six of the first nine projects to Terahertz range, with possible applications receive DCA funding in 2007 and 2008 have in medical and chemical imaging and obtained external funding from major federal security screening. agencies and industry, transforming the College’s $322,500 investment in those nine • Professor Ioannis Paschalidis (ECE, SE) projects into $2,534,510—a more than 785 and collaborating health care management percent return on investment. DCA funding has experts will pursue a comprehensive and also enabled significant research breakthroughs systematic approach to intelligently processranging from innovative techniques for ing electronic health records and directing condensing large volumes of video data physician attention to preventing serious to novel concepts and devices for enhanced medical conditions. [See page 17 for more optical sensing. details.] —Mark Dwortzan HAROLD PARK and KAMIL EKINCI PHOTOS BY KALMAN ZABarSKY

BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

College of Engineering Welcomes New Faculty

The College of Engineering welcomed nine new faculty members for the 2011–2012 academic year. Experts in diverse fields, they reflect the College’s interdisciplinary nature and are expected to bring innovative ideas to its classrooms and research labs. Previously chief technology officer for LGS, a subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent Technologies, David J. Bishop (ECE, MSE, Physics) is the new head of the Division of Materials Science & Engineering. In a career at Alcatel-Lucent (originally AT&T Bell Laboratories) spanning three decades, Bishop has advanced telecommunications, networking and cyber security solutions for the U.S. government market. He served the company in several high profile roles, including vice president of Optical, Nanotechnology and Physical Sciences Research and president of Government Research & Security Solutions. An American Physical Society (APS) and Bell Labs Fellow who holds 46 patents and has authored or co-authored some 250 publications, Bishop received his PhD in physics from Cornell University in 1978. His research focuses on silicon micromechanics, MEMS in lightwave networks, all-optical switching, low temperature physics, superconductivity and nanotechnology. He received the APS 2009 George E. Pake Prize for “his effective leadership of AT&T/Lucent/Bell Labs research during an especially turbulent time in the telecommunications industry, and for his seminal contributions to lowtemperature physics research.” Professor Allen Tannenbaum (ECE), formerly Julian Hightower professor at Georgia Institute of Technology’s (GIT) Departments of Electrical/ Computer and Biomedical Engineering and an IEEE fellow, received his PhD in mathematics from Harvard University in 1976. Author or co-author of five research texts on systems and control and more than 400 publications, and associate editor of SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization, SIAM Imaging Sciences and International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control, he has pioneered new mathematical techniques for selected engineering problems in systems and control, vision, signal processing and cryptog-

raphy. His research interests include computer vision, image processing, computer graphics, control theory, cryptography and biomedical imaging. Allen’s wife, Research Professor and Senior Lecturer Rina Tannenbaum (ME, BME), previously a professor at GIT’s School of Materials Science & Engineering, received her PhD in chemical engineering and catalysis from the Swiss Federal Institute in 1982. A member of the American Chemical Society, Materials Research Society and American Physical Society, Tannenbaum has authored a book, several book chapters and more than 120 journal publications. Her research aims to derive a methodical, comprehensive understanding of the bondingstructure-function relationship in multi-component, metal-polymer nanostructures, leading to advanced optical, biomedical and electronic devices. She is also working to develop bio-based and bio-compatible functional materials derived from renewable resources. Previously a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics at MIT, Assistant Professor James C. Bird (ME) completed his PhD at Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science in 2010. His research centers on fluid mechanics and complex fluids, particularly on the dynamics of drops and bubbles—key phenomena for problems in public health, climate change, oil exploration and other fields. Assistant Professor Chuanhua Duan (ME), formerly a postdoctoral fellow in the Materials Science Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, earned his PhD in mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley in 2009. His research focuses on nanofluidics and its practical applications in biosensing and energy conversion and storage. Assistant Professor Ahmad “Mo” Khalil (BME) joined the College from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Boston University, where he served as a postdoctoral fellow under Professor James Collins (BME). He earned his PhD in mechanical engineering at MIT in 2008. His research vision is to understand and rewire biological systems that give rise to complex cellular phenotypes, such as differentiation and

David J. Bishop

allen tannenbaum

rina tannenbaum

james c. bird

chuanhua duan

ahmad “mo”Khalil

emily m. ryan

mac schwager

wilson w. wong

mechanotransduction, by integrating reverse engineering, synthetic biology and “digital microfluidic” approaches. Khalil seeks to uncover design principles underlying biological systems and, in turn, engineer new biological properties that may address global challenges in medicine, energy and the environment. Assistant Professor Emily M. Ryan (ME) hails from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where she served as a computational scientist and postdoctoral research associate. She earned her PhD in mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in 2009. Her research centers on developing and applying computational tools to improve energy systems, with an emphasis on cleaner, more efficient energy conversion and storage technologies. Formerly a postdoctoral researcher at the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, Assistant Professor Mac Schwager (ME, SE) earned his PhD in mechanical engineering at MIT in 2009. He designs control algorithms for multi-robot systems to accomplish global tasks in a decentralized manner, and envisions his research leading to a sophisticated theory of multi-robot systems in which decentralized control algorithms enable large groups of robots to seamlessly monitor and interact with the natural world. Assistant Professor Wilson W. Wong (BME), previously a postdoctoral scholar in cellular and molecular pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco, received his PhD in chemical engineering from UCLA in 2007. At BU, Wong aims to apply his training in metabolic engineering and immune cell engineering to rapidly and predictably engineer desired properties in human immune cells to treat diseases. Assistant Professor Cara E. Stepp joins BU’s Sargent College with an affiliated appointment in the BME Department. Finally, four faculty members were promoted: Professors Venkatesh Saligrama (ECE, SE) and Xin Zhang (ME, MSE); and Associate Professors Luca Dal Negro (ECE) and Calin Belta (ME, SE). —Mark Dwortzan

E n g i n ee r fall 2 011 www.bu.edu/eng

faculty Professors Bigio and Teich Become SPIE Fellows SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, has elected both Professor Irving Bigio (BME) and Malvin C. Teich (ECE) to the rank of Fellow. Bigio was honored for his work in biological and biomedical applications of lasers and optical technologies; Teich for his achievements in the generation, characterization and detection of light—both classical (explainable in terms of classical electromagnetism) and non-classical (possessing properties that can be understood only in terms of quantum optics). They are two of 67 Fellows inducted by the Society this year for making significant scientific, technical and community contributions in the multidisciplinary fields of optics, photonics and imaging. Bigio’s work in biomedical optics is part of a growing effort to reduce health care costs through preventive medicine, early diagnosis and reduced invasiveness of inpatient and outpatient procedures. His seminal achievements include key advances in optical interactions with biopolymers and tissues, clinical applications of optical technologies and lasers, and biomedical applications of spectroscopy. Perhaps most notably, he determined that ultrastructural changes in subcellular architec-

ture could be sensed by a noninvasive optical method—elastic scattering spectroscopy—and that this method could be used to detect preliminary signs of cancer by measurements using optical fibers through endoscopes, catheters and needles. A Boston University faculty member since 1995, Teich is most widely known for his research in photonics, quantum optics, and information transmission and processing in biological sensory systems. In a career spanning five decades, he has carried out extensive experimental and theoretical research, using advanced techniques to characterize different sources of light and the performance of optical systems using these sources. A number of his experiments have revealed previously unknown phenomena, from observing that individual sensory cells in the cochlea vibrate spontaneously in the absence of acoustic signals, to demonstrating that, under certain conditions, a single photon at the human retina can be perceived. His conception of luminescence light in terms of clustered photon emissions—and how to reduce noise from this source—was incorporated in the Galileo spacecraft’s star-scanner guidance system, and led to a new class of ultralow-noise photodetectors suitable for use in lightwave communication systems.

Professors Irving Bigio (BME), left, and Malvin c. teich (ECE) (Photos by Vernon Doucette)

—Mark Dwortzan, with rachel harrington

■ Assistant Professor Hatice Altug (ECE, MSE) was one of 85 engineers from academia, government and industry selected to take part in the National Academy of Engineering’s (NAE) 17th annual U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium. Held September 19–21 at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, the three-day event brought together exceptional engineering researchers and practitioners aged 30 to 45 to discuss leading-edge research in various engineering fields and industry sectors. Altug was also selected to give an invited talk, “Plasmonic-enhanced Detectors and their Applications in Smart Lighting,” at the IEEE Photonics Society Annual Meeting in October in Arlington, Virginia.

faculty

■ The APIC Corporation and the Photonics Corporation awarded Associate Professor Luca Dal Negro (ECE, MSE) $150,000 to support his efforts to enable the engineering of novel metal-based nanostructures capable of boosting the response of photodetectors, solar cells and nanoscale antenna elements for on-chip light emission and coupling. ■ The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center awarded Associate Professors Michael Gevelber and Donald Wroblewski (both ME) a Catalyst award to fund their project, “Achieving Energy Efficiency in Existing Buildings: Development of a Software Tool to Optimize Building HVAC,” which seeks to build a system prototype and performance evaluation for a large, mixed-use building at Boston University. ■ The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation selected Assistant Professor Xue Han (BME) as winner of a 2011 Sloan Research Fellowship for her work in neuroscience. One of only 118 early-career researchers recognized nationally with this award, Han focuses on developing radical new genetic, molecular and optical neuro-technologies, and application protocols to treat brain disorders.

BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

News Bytes

■ The National Science Foundation’s Center of Excellence for Learning in Education, Science and Technology (NSF-CELEST) awarded Assistant Professor Ajay Joshi (ECE) and Senior Research Scientist Massimiliano Versace (CAS) $97,417 to develop both hardware and neural algorithms to provide mobile robots with efficient autonomous navigation capability. ■ The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded $318,784 for a one-year study conducted by Associate Professor Siddharth Ramachandran (ECE) on the properties of optical vortices in optical fibers. Ramachandran’s research group published its first results at the 2011 Conference on Lasers and Electro Optics in Baltimore. ■ On March 21, more than 100 faculty members, friends and family gathered at a retirement party in the Photonics Building for ECE Professors Michael Ruane and Thomas Skinner. Ruane and Skinner had worked more than 50 years combined in the ECE Department. ■ The Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation Fellowship in Brisbane, Australia selected Assistant Professor Muhammad Zaman (BME) for a summer visiting faculty position. ■ Professor Selim Ünlü (ECE, MSE) discussed his research in nanophotonics in the cover story of the July 12 issue of EEWeb Pulse Magazine. ■ Associate Professor Xin Zhang (ME, MSE) is one of about 60 engineers from academia, government and industry selected to take part in the NAE’s second annual European Union–U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium in November. The event will bring together exceptional engineering researchers and practitioners aged 30 to 45 from the U.S. and Europe to discuss leading-edge research in various engineering fields and industry sectors.

■ PhD candidate Eric Gratz (MSE) will be awarded the $2,500 Henry DeWitt Smith Scholarship by the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society and the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical & Petroleum Engineers at the TMS 2012 Annual Meeting & Exhibition in Orlando, Florida on March 13, 2012.

■ Ten sophomores and juniors—Samir Ahmed (EE’13), Evegeni Aizenberg (EE’12), David Berry (BME’12), Peter Girouard (ME’12), Kyle Jones (BME’13), Kam Lai (EE’12), Jarrod Milshtein (ME’13), Katheryn Rothenberg (BME’12), Andrew Schiff (BME’12) and Kara Silver (ME’12)— conducted research with societal impact this summer as winners of this year’s Kenneth R. Lutchen Distinguished Fellowships. Their proposed projects targeted innovations in domains ranging from clean energy generation to whale monitoring.

students + alumni

■ MobiLIFE, a startup founded in part by Brian Chan (BME’10) and Dan Collins (CE’11) that advances a low-cost, painless, Bluetooth-enabled continuous glucose monitor, won a national video competition for teams of college inventors hosted by Inventors Digest and the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance. The company also received first-place honors at an Open Minds event in March at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. ■ Meredith Duffy (BME’11) and Jaclyn Lautz (BME’09) received National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowships, which include a $30,000 annual stipend and $10,500 cost-ofeducation allowance for up to three years to outstanding graduate students deemed likely to contribute significantly to the advancement of science and engineering in the United States. Both previously worked in Associate Professor Joyce Wong’s (BME, MSE) Biomimetic Materials Engineering Laboratory (BMEL).

■ The BU ByteLight team of Schuyler Eldridge, Aaron Ganick and Daniel Ryan (all EE’10), and Travis Rich (EE, MS’11) were selected to participate in Highland Capital Partners’ Summer@ Highland 2011 program for universityaffiliated entrepreneurs, which provides a $15,000 stipend and complimentary office space for the summer. Based at Boston University’s Photonics Center and supported by the NSF Smart Lighting Engineering Research Center at BU, ByteLight has developed an optical communications system embedded in LED lighting.

▲ Professor Janusz Konrad (ECE)discussed the resurgence of 3-D technologies in IEEE Signal Processing Magazine. Glasses-free displays, such as the SynthaGram pictured above, could potentially accelerate the adoption of 3-D.

▼ Genny Plant (ECE’11) traveled to Alaska in March to collaborate with Associate Professor Joshua Semeter (ECE) on the development and remote operation of imaging systems to track the aurora borealis. Their work may help better predict aurora activity in the future and prevent some problems they cause, such as interference with satellite communication and power outages.

■ RayVio, a project team headed by Yitao Liao (ECE, PhD’10), placed first in the BU School of Management (SMG) Institute for Technology Entrepreneurship & Commercialization’s 11th Annual $50K New Venture Competition. The team has developed revolutionary ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that are a low-cost, durable and energy-efficient substitute for mercury lamps in the water purification and disinfection market. ■ A team consisting of Connor McEwen (EE’14) and three SMG students won the first annual Smart Lighting Challenge, held at the SMG. The team showcased their ideas for utilizing smart lighting for grocery store cart analytics and communication. ■ A committee of the 48th Design utomation Conference awarded A Assistant Professor Ayse Coskun (ECE) with the $24,000 A. Richard Newton Graduate Scholarship award, which will be used to support one of her PhD students, Jie Meng, on Coskun’s project, “3D systems for Low-PowerHigh-Performance Computing.” ■ At the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Electrostatics Society of America at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, Jeremy Stark (ECE, PhD’13) won first place in the Student Presentations category for his paper on the use of low-frequency, high-voltage signals to electrostatically remove dust from solar panels. ■ Idan Warsawski (CE’12) is one of 14 BU students to receive a Harold C. Case Scholarship, and Keri Mroszczyk (BME’12) is one of two BU students to receive a Dean Elsbeth Melville Scholarship. Both prestigious BU scholarships recognize juniors for academic excellence and service to the University. —Mark Dwortzan, with Rachel Harrington and Samantha Gordon (COM’12)

E n g i n ee r fall 2 011 www.bu.edu/eng

alumni

We want to hear from you! Send your class notes submissions to engalum@ bu.edu or visit www.bu.edu/alumni/eng.

Students make final adjustments before the processional at the College of Engineering’s 58th annual Commencement.

All Set to Advance Society ENG Grads Called to Action at 58th Annual Commencement

“ Beyond the degree, you’ve achieved something else—becoming a Societal Engineer, someone [well prepared] to impact and shape organizations in addressing society’s grand challenges,” said Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen in his opening remarks at the College of Engineering’s 58th annual Commencement. “You’ve got the skill set to make sure society is not just sustained, but advanced.” 30

BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

Alumni Events Echoing the dean’s remarks, undergraduate student speaker Stephen J. Maouyo (ME) encouraged graduating seniors to use their creativity to explore how the technologies “ Use that well-roundthey develop can be used to ed, perspective-based alleviate human suffering. “What was most valuable education and turn about Boston University’s that gold into someengineering curriculum was the pairing of engineering with thing else, something perspective,” he said, likening more valuable.” the end product of that cur—undergraduate riculum to gold. “My challenge student speaker Stephen J. to you today is to use that wellMaouyo (below) rounded, perspective-based education and turn that gold into something else, something more valuable.” Primed to apply their potent skills to a vast array of societal needs, 16 master of engineering, 160 master of science and 287 bachelor of science students were recognized on May 22 at the Track & Tennis Center for successfully completing the requirements for graduation. Sixty-three doctor of philosophy graduates were honored at a separate ceremony the previous evening. As he lined up with fellow capped-and-gowned undergraduates awaiting their “ Life is uncertain, but processional into the arena, Commencement speeches and life’s many uncertaindiplomas, Dan Mashayekh ties can be an(MFG), who returned to the College of Engineering this fall ticipated, measured, in the MEng program, observed, “The first time I came here, this mitigated and even was the place where we got sometimes turned to matriculated, and it looked so your advantage.” much bigger back then. After four years, it makes me happy to —Internet pioneer Robert M. Metcalfe (above) delivering be able to say, ‘I’m an engineer.’” the Commencement address Mashayekh lauded the ENG program for training him to analyze an engineering problem on the spot and come up with a

solution, and to translate concepts into tangible prototypes. Internet pioneer Robert M. Metcalfe, professor of innovation and Murchison Fellow of Free Enterprise in the University of Texas at Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering and 2005 National Medal of Technology winner for his leadership in co-inventing, standardizing and commercializing the Ethernet, delivered the Commencement address. Metcalfe, who founded 3Com Corporation, authored a widely read Internet column in IDG InfoWorld and now serves as a venture partner of the Massachusetts-based Polaris Venture Partners. He urged graduates to recognize that success depends on a mix of hard work and luck. “Life is uncertain, but life’s many uncertainties can be anticipated, measured, mitigated and even sometimes turned to your advantage,” he said, stressing the importance of being prepared for both worst- and best-case scenarios. “The best preparation for an uncertain future is a degree in engineering.” At the PhD hooding ceremony on May 21 at the School of Management auditorium, featured speaker Rao Mulpuri (MFG MS’92, PhD’96) focused his remarks on how graduates can best shape that future. Mulpuri, CEO of Soladigm, a developer of next-generation green building solutions and a former executive at Novellus Systems, a leading supplier of technologies used in semiconductor manufacturing, advised, “Be impactful, keep learning, get recognized, have a career path and have fun.”

At College of Engineering receptions from San Francisco . . .

Greg Seiden (ENG’80) and Kent Hughes (ENG’79) at the San Francisco alumni reception in January.

. . .to New York . . .

Michael Hamilton (ENG’05), Michael Lamprecht (ENG’05), Rebekah Gensure (ENG’05) and Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen at the New York alumni reception in June.

. . .and back in Boston . . .

Heather (CAS’83) and Andrew Marsh (ENG’83) at the Boston Red Sox pregame luncheon in June.

—Mark Dwortzan

. . .ENG alums had something to smile about. Commencement photos courtesy of Commencement Photos, Inc. E n g i n ee r fall 2 011 www.bu.edu/eng

alumni

honor roll

Engineering Annual Fund Supporters

Dear Friends, You did it again! More of you than ever before have given more generously than ever before! “Thank you very much” doesn’t begin to express my admiration. You seniors really set the pace by obliterating all previous records for the Senior Class Gift. More than half of you contributed, a several-fold increase over your most generous predecessors! Undergraduate parents, once again you were stellar. Scores of you gave for the very first time. BU tuition is expensive, so I am especially grateful for your gifts. Alumni, you broke every ENG Annual Fund record: number of donors (up 21 percent); number of leadership donors (up 22 percent); and total annual fund dollars. In fact, over the past four years, you have almost tripled the ENG annual fund! If you know of another group of alums anywhere in the U.S. that can match your generosity, I would like to hear about it. It gets better: “Total giving” includes the annual fund, major gifts, pledges, and corporate and foundation grants. In this first year of the nucleus fund of our Capital Campaign, more than $9,000,000 was given or pledged, exceeding by two-thirds the largest total in recent years. Some highlights: Dean’s Leadership Advisory Board Chairman Rick Reidy (SMG’82) and his wife, Minda (SMG’82 GSM’84), began the year by pledging a career development professorship to support promising young faculty during the most critical time in their careers. The

professorship will rotate between the College of Engineering and the School of Management. Joe Healey (ENG’88) proposed and funded the “Engineers in the Real World” program, which will bring engineering alumni and parents who have been working in many different careers to BU to explain to sophomores how the quantitative and analytical skills they learned as undergraduates have been instrumental to their success. Roger Dorf (ENG’70), who chairs the ENG Capital Campaign Steering Committee, very generously pledged the Dorf-Ebner Faculty Scholar Award for exceptional mid-career faculty. Binoy Singh, MD (ENG’89) made an enabling pledge toward the Imagineering Laboratory, a well-equipped facility for undergrads to design, build and test their original engineering ideas. Several parents have already made generous pledges for this new lab. This unprecedented outpouring of financial support is a very enthusiastic endorsement of how Dean Lutchen’s leadership and energy are transforming the College, and also of his strategic vision to graduate broadly educated Societal Engineers. If you haven’t already, please jump on board and join us in this grand undertaking! My warmest thanks to you, your families and my dedicated colleagues. I hope to see you soon. Bruce Jordan Assistant Dean of Development & Alumni Relations

PRESIDENT’S ASSOCIATES ($10,000–$24,999) Best Automatic Sprinkler Corp. Mr. and Mrs. James F. Bopp Jr. Mr. David Francis Kiersznowski (’85) Mr. Peter J. Levine (’83)

Mr. Husam H. Nazer• (’95) Mrs. Minda G. Reidy (SMG’82, GSM’84) Mr. Richard D. Reidy° (SMG’82)

DEAN’S CIRCLE ($5,000–$9,999) Mr. John E. Abele° Mr. Gregg E. Adkin§° (’86) Mr. Edward Shannon Watts Boesel (’70) Professor Theo A. De Winter† Norman E. Gaut, PhD° Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund Mr. David E. Hollowell§ (’69, ’72; GSM’74) Kathleen A. Hollowell, EdD§ (GRS’71, SED’77) Mr. Dean L. Kamen° (HON’06) Mr. Ezra D. Kucharz (’90) Mr. and Mrs. Peter Kwan Mr. John A. Maccarone§° (’66) Mr. Eric J. Meltzer (’82) Mr. Mark R. Templeton

LEADERSHIP CIRCLE ($2,500–$4,999) Mr. Nassib George Chamoun (’86) Covidien Fidelity Foundation GE Foundation§ Mr. Amit Jain° (’85, ’88) Mr. William C. Kurtz§ (’60) Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen†§ Mr. Martin I. Lynch• (’82) Mr. Andrew J. Marsh (’83) Mr. Walther Thomas Meier (’88, MET’04) Dr. Rao P. Mulpuri (’92, ’96) Mr. Carl L. Myers Jr.§ (’65) Raytheon Charitable Gift Fund§ Mr. Glenn Jeffrey Riedman (’90) Mr. John J. Tegan III° (’88) Mr. Francis J. Troise§ (’87) Mr. John J. Ullo °

BENEFACTOR CIRCLE ($1,000–$2,499) Mr. Marc Jason Albanese (’99, ’03)

BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

Mrs. Colleen Barry Athans§ (’89) Professor Stormy Attaway† (GRS’84, ’88) Mr. Charles E. Bascom§ (’64) The Elizabeth Bascom Charitable Lead Unitrust§ Mr. Joseph M. Basile (’82) Mr. Christopher H. Brousseau§• (’91) Mrs. Deborah H. Caplan§ (’90) Mr. Wayne Cheung§ (’99) Mr. Peter K. Cocolis§ (’64) Mr. Jason Paul Colacchio (’90) Mr. Gregory Stuart Cordrey• (’88) Mr. George Schakabe Corey (’85) David Dean, DMD§ (’73) Professor Charles DeLisi† Mr. and Mrs. Roger A. Dorf° (’70) Tahsin Mark Ergin, MD§ (’81) Ms. Debra Feldman Ms. Kerry Corrigan Foley§ (’91) Mr. Patrick J. Foley§ (’91, ’94) Colonel John R. Folloni Jr. (’60, ’72) Ms. Janie M. Fouke Ms. Veronica M. Frankenstein (’83) Richard A. Fuller, PhD§• (’88) Mr. Ronald Gene Garriques° (’86) Ms. Lisa W. Gill Ms. Regina K. Gorski Carolan (’97, ’03) Dr. Warren M. Grill (’89) Dr. Paul W. Gross (’93, ’98) Dr. Jennifer Ruth Gruber§ (’99) Mr. Mikhail Gurevich (’07) Mr. Roger A. Hajjar• (’88) Dr. Kenneth E. Hancock§ (’92, ’01) Harris Foundation Mr. William T. Hathaway IV§ (’65) Mr. Masood Heydari (’80, GSM’97) Mr. Mark G. Hilderbrand (’87) Mr. Jon K. Hirschtick° Mr. and Mrs. Iftekhar Hossain Mr. Brendon J. Howe• (’84) Robert H. Howland, MD§ (’82) Ms. Marjorie Fong-Fei Hsu (’86, GSM’93) Mr. Kent W. Hughes§ (’79) Ms. Ruth A. Hunter (’64, GSM’86) Mr. and Mrs. William I. Huyett° Mr. Ronald H. Johnson§ (’59) Mr. Paul Karger (’00) Ms. Karen Elizabeth Kullas (’77) Professor Min-Chang Lee† Mr. Alfredo Li (’84) Mr. Yu-Jen Lin

Mr. Nicholas J. Lippis III§° (’84, ’89) Mr. Thomas Peter Lisowski (’95) Daniel C. Maneval, PhD§ (’82) Mr. David W. Maruska (’82) Mr. James Robert McCoy (’85, GSM’05) Professor Theodore D. Moustakas†§ George S. Ouellette, MD§ (’81) Dr. Luis A. Pagan-Carlo (’85) Mr. Anton T. Papp• (’90) Kevin Kit Parker, PhD (’89) Mr. Sanjay Patel§ (’87) Mr. James S. Paulsen§ (’69, ’72) Mr. Sanjay Prasad• (’86, ’87) Mr. Alan G. Rottman Professor Ronald A. Roy† Mr. Robert Frank Sabia (’87) Mr. George M. Savage• (’81) Mr. Gregory D. Seiden§• (’80) Binoy K. Singh, MD§° (’89) Mr. and Mrs. Frank Steranka Benjamin David Sullivan, PhD (’97) Mr. Bima Harbani Sumawijaya (’88) Mr. Francis A. Tiernan• (’70) Twin Focus Capital Partners, LLC United Technologies§ Professor Selim M. Ünlü† Verizon Foundation§ Mr. Gordon R. Walsh§ (’67, ’68; GSM’71) Mr. William Walter Weiss§ (’83, ’97) Mr. and Mrs. Mark L. Wilkie Mr. and Mrs. Berl P. Winston§ (’64) Ms. Janice K. Zika§ (’84)

DONORS ($500–$999) Aetna Foundation Inc. Mr. and Mrs. Ongart Auapinyakul Bank of America Foundation C. R. Bard Foundation Inc. The Boeing Company§ Mr. Stephen Michael Campbell§ (’97) Mr. Wesley Robert Chedister (’00) Dr. Brant A. Cheikes§ (’84) Susan Long Crockett, Esq. (’84)

† Faculty/Staff § 5-Year Consecutive Donor

Mr. Hemang D. Dave Mr. Salvatore J. De Amicis§ (’55) Felcor Rosanne Elena Felicello, Esq. (UNI’99, LAW’02) Mr. Stephen P. Flosdorf (’84) Mr. John M. Garvey (’86) Mr. John Gillespie (’85, ’87) Steven D. Girouard, PhD (’89) Mr. Bradley Steven Howe• (’84,’89) Intel Foundation§ Mr. David H. Johnson§ (’65, ’66) Mr. Bruce C. Jordan† (’99) Mr. Min Ki Kim (’86) Mrs. Barbara A. Kowack-Murthy§ (’90) Mr. David W. Lacey (’65) Mr. Jeffrey M. Melzak (CAS’84) Mrs. Julie S. Melzak (’87) Mr. Anthony Delbert Merenda (’64) Mr. David S. Miller (’91, ’94) Richard P. Nalesnik, PhD (’60, COM’63) Parker Hannifin Corp Mr. and Mrs. Bradley Pederson Ms. Kim Quyen Vu Pham (’91) Mr. Ram Das Rao (’88) Mr. Brooks S. Read§ (’81) Dr. Brahm Alexander Rhodes (’85, ’88, GRS’91) Ms. Sandra L. Rivas-Hall§ (’81) Mr. Jeffrey Thomas Roy (’95) Mr. David C. V. Royce (’65) Mrs. Maria A. Scardera§ (’84) Dr. Eric J. Sheppard§ (’83) Mr. Dylan Patrick Steeg• (’95) Mr. Victor Kay Tan (’85) H. T. Than, Esq. (’85, LAW’93) Mr. Kenneth C. Tolides§ (’58) UBS Americas PAC Charity Match Program Mr. Thomas G. Westbrook (’91) Mr. Albert Clay Williams (’89) Robert P. Wotiz, PhD (’99, ’05, ’06) Mr. Ammar Farouk Zahran (’93)

DONORS ($250–$499) Ms. Karen Tune Bain (’87) Mrs. Marilynne Belna Mr. David Jay Brand (’83) Mr. Jeffrey I. Braverman (’61)

Mr. Ignatius D. Calalang (’88, ’99) Mr. Howard T. Chun (’83) Mr. Joseph E. Coffey Jr. (’72) Ms. Debra L. Coleman (’88, MET’10) William H. Colwill, PhD (’70) Mr. George A. Darcy III (’84) Mr. Jeffrey Blaine Davis (’85) Peter M. Dichiara, Esq. (’85, LAW’93) Mr. Robert A. Downey (’61) Mr. Lawrence S. Drasner, Esq. (’89) Mr. Michael Duchnowski (’91, ’93) Mr. and Mrs. Shimon Feldman Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund§ Mr. James Y. Fong (’71, ’74) Mr. Gary A. Freeman (’86) Mr. Rushi Mahesh Ganmukhi (’11) Mr. George C. Guerra (’84) Mrs. Sheila M. Hemeon-Heyer (’81) Ms. Jody L. Hoppe (’82) Mr. Douglas Mark Jenkins (’86) William J. Karlon, PhD (’88, ’91) Mr. and Mrs. Paul Kwakyi Ms. Adene Lacy Mr. Manuel A. Landa (’66) Mr. and Mrs. Chak Lau Andrew E. Lazar, MD (’89) Mr. Robert B. Leonard (’84) Mr. Dennis Lo Mr. David W. Lowry (’54) Mr. Eric Jason Lynch (’00, ’05) Mr. Jean R. Malenfant§ (’60) Mr. Peter Frank Martin (’70) Mr. George P. Matisse (’89, GSM’91) Robert C. McKinstry, MD§ (’84) Mr. Peter Meaden Mr. Joseph J. Padellaro Jr. (CAS’78) Professor Uday Pal† Mr. Christos I. Panidis (’07) Mr. John Papadopoulos (’60) Mr. Ioannis Paschalidis† Don Rushing William L. Salzer, MD§ (’72) Mr. Gerardo Arturo Sanabria (’02) Mr. Ronak Ramesh Shah (’99) Mr. Chi-Kai Victor Sin (’88, CAS’88) Mr. Frederic J. Syrjala§ (’58, ’60) Nora Theresa Tgavalekos, PhD (’00, ’03)

° Dean’s Engineering Leadership Advisory Board • West Coast Alumni Leadership Council

Ms. Michelle F. Tortolani§ (’82, ’89) Ms. Hong Gia Thi Tran (’06) Mr. Anton Edwin Tremp (’89) Ms. Kerry Twibell (’00) Mr. Jason M. Ulberg§ (’98) Mr. Viktor Vajda (’02, ’04; MET’06) Major Matthew Alan Zahn (’94)

DONORS ($100–$249) Alexander Adam, Esq. (’92, ’95, ’03) Mr. and Mrs. Kurt Adams Ms. Elizabeth Ann Afanasewicz (’05) Commander William Thomas Alex, USN (’89) Mr. James Douglas Alman§ (’87) Mr. George J. Arouchon§ (’54) Mr. Charles S. Asmar Jr.§ (’55, ’58) AT&T Foundation Mr. Norman L. Bailis§ (’65) Mr. Jimmy R. Balder Mrs. Deborah C. Ball (’81) Mr. Victor Libunao Bartolome (’07) Mr. Joseph Bassi III (’98) Mr. Edward Bender (’81) Christopher Ronald Benoit (Ret.) (’88) Mr. Kenneth B. Benson§ (’63) Mr. Robert J. Berkovits§ (’77) Mr. Frederick N. Blount (’66) Mr. Theodore A. Bogdanski Jr. (’86) Mr. John Jude Bolton (’89) James H. Briggs Janna Briggs Insurance Agency Ms. Maura Brindley-Winnett Dr. Alfred S. Brothers Jr. (’64) Mr. Charles A. Brown§ (’68) Mr. Charles Everett Brown (’70) Mr. Darryl W. Brown (’78) Mr. Andrew R. Brughera†§ (’95) Ms. Laura C. Brutman (’89) Mr. Kevin Henry Burek (’08) Mr. James Joseph Byrne§ (’93) Ms. Pamela Cueva Cabahug (’96) Ms. Furong Cai Mr. Marc K. Cannon§ (’82) Dr. and Mrs. Howard Neil Caplan§ Mr. James H. Caplan (’79, GSM’83) Mr. William Carmody Mr. Frederic D. Carter III (’97) Mr. David A. Casavant (’85, ’88) Dr. and Mrs. Steven M. Cassell Ms. Tatiana Chapsky (’81, ’83) Mr. Jong H. Chen (’96)

Mr. Kenneth T. Cheng (’84) Mr. and Mrs. Peter Kevin Cherry Mr. Jerry Chew (’70) Mr. Edmond W. Chin§ (’74, GSM’75) Mr. Justin Chin (’10) Ms. Jung Cho Mr. Peter Michael Cirak (’01, ’07) Mr. Peter Wayne Ciriello (’94) Mr. Joshua M. Cochin (’90) Mr. and Mrs. Steven L. Cockrell§ Mr. Richard H. Coco§ (’62) Mr. and Mrs. Richard A. Colby§ Mrs. Carolyn Renea Collins-Myrie (’94, ’00) Commodity Resources of New England Inc. Mr. John T. Costa (’90) Mr. Thomas R. Cross§ (’65) Mr. Christopher J. Csencsits§ (’87) Dr. Chenhuan Cui (’07) Mr. Michael Joseph Cunha (’04, ’06) Mr. Anthony Cuomo Jr.§ (’93) Mr. Richard D. Curtis§ (’58) Mr. Wei Dai (’99) Mr. George H. Darrell (’74) Mr. Frank Henry Daurio (’69) Ms. Ella De Bakker Mr. Raymond Diaz§ (’84) Mr. Russell G. DiMicco (’84) Ms. Sheila J. Dooley§ (’91) Mr. Kenneth Joseph Dunn§ (’67) Mr. Jean F. Duvivier (’55) Ms. Maureen O. Ehrlicher Mr. John Eldridge Mr. Charles C. Eliot (’58) Mr. Norman Eng (’01) Mr. Charles R. Enriquez§ (’92) Mr. Harry W. Erickson (’53, ’61) Mr. Gustavo Patricio Espinosa§ (’91) Ms. Donna M. Fedor (’88) Miss Martha E. Ferris (’82) Mrs. Sharon Kaiser Fincher§ (’82) Mr. Earl Bernard Finney Jr.§ (’94) Mr. Gary H. Fisher (’69) Mr. Stephen P. Foraste (’91, ’94) Mr. David William Freitag§ (’91) Mr. Dominic Edward Fullenkamp (’05) Mr. Raymond Matthew Gabriel (’02) Mr. Timothy P. Ganley (’91) Mr. Saul Goldfarb Mr. Raymond M. Govotski (’95) Mr. Daniel J. Grabowski (’07) Mr. Douglas W. Graham (’86) Mr. John S. Graham (’91)

Mr. Gavin Layton Gray (’05) Mr. Thomas A. Greeley§ (’87) Mr. Charles J. Green§ (’79) Mrs. Dorothy P. Greenberg Mr. and Mrs. Dimitri Grigoriadis Mr. Antonio Gross§ (’69) Mr. Robert Gunnels Daniel Stuart Hagg, MD (’95) Ms. Dale H. Hall (’86) Mr. Roswell G. Hall III (’72) Mr. and Mrs. Seth P. Harlow Mr. Arthur R. Hathaway§ (’59) Mr. Edwin Paul Heaney Jr. (’86) Mr. Richard L. Heilman (’72) Mr. David I. Herman§ (’70) Dr. Alfred O. Hero III (’77, ’80; CAS’76) Mr. James V. Hickey (’57) Mr. Yue-shun E. Ho§ (’89) Mr. Peter H. Hoffman (’74, GSM ’01) Mr. Spencer J. Hogan (’98) Mr. Paul Michael Holway (’96) IBM Corporation§ Mr. and Mrs. Antonio T. Infante Mr. Richard Elwyn Jenness§ (’63) Jersey Shore Portfolio Managements, LLC Dr. Yuan Jing (’02, ’05) Ms. Olga Jn-Michel Mr. Donald R. Johnson (’65) Mr. and Mrs. Siavash Karrobi Mrs. Jenifer Kaufman (’90) Mr. Michael P. Kazenel (’80) Mr. Michael N. Keefe§ (’89) Mr. Devon James Kehoe (’85) The Reverend Donald S. Kelley (’59) Mr. Robert E. Kelley§ (’58) Mr. James H. Kelly (’81) Mr. Colin James Kelly-Rand (’08) Mr. and Mrs. Scott S. Kim Mr. Gary C. Kline (’84, ’87) Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Knapp Mr. Michael Koan (’09) Mr. Georgi Korobanov (’06) Mr. Jozef Kowalczyk Mr. and Mrs. Roy A. Kraus§ Mr. Scott Riley Kreamer (’01) Mr. Michael Kreppein (’87, ’89) Mr. and Mrs. Subi Kulla§ Mr. Boissevain Kwan§ (’83) Richard T. La Brecque, EdD (SED’59, ’71) Mr. Michael Leung Laiman§ (’86) Mr. Ronnie M. Lajoie (’84) Mr. Richard Lally†§ (MET’99) Mr. David Richard Lancia Jr. (’02, ’04)

E n g i n ee r fall 2 011 www.bu.edu/eng

alumni

honor roll

Engineering Annual Fund Supporters (continued) Mr. David J. Languedoc§ (’87) Mr. Peter E. Lenk§ (’78) Mr. Stuart J. Lerman Mr. Robert Christopher Levin (’87, ’88) Mr. David B. Lindquist (’82) Mr. Norman S. Lindsay (’67) Link Medical Computing, Inc. Ms. Linda Shulsky Lipay Mr. Robert W. Locke (’61) Lockheed Martin/The Scholarship Foundation Jennifer C. Logan, MD (’79, ’80) Ms. Brenda D. Lynch Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Eugene Mabius§ Mr. Kevin Scott Mader (’08) Henry A. Magnuson, DSc § (’78) Ms. Pamela G. Maher (’81) Miss Kimchi Mai (’93) Mr. Michael Manes Mr. Mark Manton Mr. Andrew J. Matthews (’67) Mr. Eric Maxwell (’98) Mr. Ronald S. Maxwell§ (’78) Mr. Gregory McCarthy (’06) Ms. Lindsey McCullough§ Mr. Michael James McCullough§ (’03) Mr. and Mrs. Terence McEwen Mrs. Alycia Anne McGoldrick (’86, ’94) John A. McNeill, PhD§ (’94) Ms. Janine R. Mereb (’84, GRS’84) Mr. David Mitchell Merer (’86) Ms. Pamela L. Metz§ (’81) Mr. Brett Jordan Meyer (’10) Microsoft Giving Campaign/ Matching Prog.§ Ms. Sepideh Baghaii Miller (’01) Mr. John N. Mitropoulos§ (’56, ’59) Mr. Michael Monahan Mr. Jonathan Rene Mooty§ (’90) Mr. David P. Moriarty (’64) Mr. John Morrissey (’88) Dr. Ronald P. Morrissey (’92, ’01) Mr. Ryan Douglas Morse (’03) Mr. Jason Moy (’05) Ms. Mitra A. Mujica-Margolis (’99, CGS’95) Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence J. Munini Mr. William J. Murray§ (’81) Mr. Kurukundi Ramesh Murthy (’90) Ms. Mindy Joy Myers§ Hideko Heidi Nakajima, MD (’87, ’91, ’02; MED’02) Mr. William E. Neifert§ (’90, ’92)

Mr. and Mrs. Kirk Nerheim Nextera Energy Foundation Mr. Bruce Ng§ (’84) Mr. Kenneth Khanh Nguyen§ (’89) Mr. Ly Van Nguyen (’87) Mr. Walter Charles Nicolson§ (’64, DGE’51) Mr. Michael J. Norris (’07) Northrop Grumman Foundation§ Miss Elizabeth Bernadette O’Brien (’93) Mr. Kevin Michael O’Brien (’93) Ms. Pamela A. Oliver§ (’84) Mr. Christopher R. Ordway (’69) Mr. Osman Oueida (’01) Joon B. Park, PhD (’67) Ms. Masumi P. Patel (SMG’99, MET’02) Joseph Francis Piazza, MD (CAS’73) Mrs. Kathleen R. Plovnick (’89, CAS’68) Mr. and Mrs. Michael D. Poling Mr. Richard N. Polio Mr. John J. Post§ (’64) Mr. Mahalingiah Prasad Mr. Peter I. Presel§ (’61) Mr. William George Quirk§ (’62) Mr. Nicholas P. Racheotes (’64) Mr. Christopher John Reaney§ (’87) Mr. Donald Cyril Reny Jr. (’88) Ms. Jinara D. Reyes† (CAS’88, GSM’99) Mr. Kyle Richard (’86) Mr. Ethan Frederick Robbins (’04) Rockefeller Financial Services Inc. Mr. and Mrs. Paul C. Rohr§ Mr. Robert H. Ropp (’79, GSM’74, GSM’80) Ms. Kristine Ann Rose (SMG’09) Mr. Geoffrey North Rowland (’05) Mr. Derek M. Russell (’88) Mr. Daniel Patrick Ryan (’10) Ms. Melanie Sabo (’81) Mr. Greg Nicholas Saccoccio (’94) Mr. George R. Sachs (’62) Ms. Melanie Sadofsky Mr. Michael L. Salamone§ (’84) Dr. Leonardo Pereira Santiago (’04) Mr. David R. Scherer (’99) Mr. Andrew Schmidt Mr. David M. Schneeweis (’84) Ms. Lisa Robinson Schoeller§ (’82, GSM’98) Ms. Erika Schon Mrs. Deborah Lee Schuh (’88) Mr. Brian L. Schulz (’82) Mr. Ushir Naresh Shah (’98)

BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

Ms. Mala Karuna Sharma (’07) Mr. Neal K. Sharma (’01) Mr. Pratik Sharma (’97) Mr. Ananth Shenoy (’01) Silicon Valley Community Foundation Suzanne & Alan Simoncini§ Ms. Monica Louise Slegar (’02, GSM ’05) Mr. Stan V. Smith Ms. Juliet E. Sonkoly (’00) Ms. Julie Sperry Mr. Eddy St. Juste (’02) Mr. James M. Steadman (’88) Mr. and Mrs. Dale Steichen Ms. Jane D. Stepak§ (’78, CAS’78) Mr. Robert Stone (’82) David W. Streem, MD (’91) Mr. Eric R. Stutman§ (’93) Mr. Frank O. Sunderland (’72, GSM’74) Mr. Patrick James Sweeney (’85) Mr. Chinh Tan (’86, ’88) Mr. Y. Edwin Tang (’97) Mr. Darrell J. Tanno (’80) Mr. Gabriel Keng-Meng Tay (’85) Mr. Gregory Loo Thanavaro (’08) Mr. and Mrs. Robert J. Theer§ Charles Thomas, PhD (’03, ’04) Mr. Alexander Westland Thomson§ (’85) Mr. Craig Tommila Mr. Garo R. Toomajanian (’85) Mr. Emanuel D. Torti (’79) Torti Flanagan, PC Truist Inc. Mr. David T. Tsang Mr. Richard Tullo Mr. Daniel A. Tyszka§ (’94) Mrs. Susanna K. Tzau (’85) Mr. and Mrs. Peter L. Uy Mr. Michael A. Valerio (’80) Mr. and Mrs. Guy Vandevoordt§ Mr. and Mrs. Dante Velasquez Mr. Peter Velikin (’99) Ms. Wendy Wan (’89) Mr. Jui-Tai Wang§ (’85, ’86) Ms. Mary Anne Wassenberg (’90) Mr. and Mrs. John F. Waters§ Mr. Jason Adam Weiner (’02) Mr. John Edward Welch (’84) Mr. Brian James Wherry (’98) Whitney Place§ Mr. Derek Wiebenson (’95) Mr. Roger D. Williams (’68) Mr. K. Wilson§ (’91) Mr. Philip T. Winterson (’62) Mr. Edward C. Wong (’61, ’69)

Mr. Hasting Sun-Chor Wong (’67, ’68) Mrs. Mary S.M. Wong (’84, MET’88) Xerox Corporation§ Mr. Siavash Yazdanfar (’96) Ms. Karen Yee Mr. and Mrs. Kai Yue Yeung Michael Steven Young, MD (’85, ’89; MED’91) Dr. Guo-Xiang Yu (’95) Mr. Tony Hing Cheung Yu§ (’85) Miss Diane Frances Zanca§ (’85) Mr. Abdolreza Zehdar Mr. Joshua Saul Zeisel (’07) Dr. Xianfeng Zhao (’04) Dr. Yaopeng Zhou (’05, ’08, ’09) Mr. Todd E. Zive§ (’98)

DONORS (up to $99) Mr. Dan J. Abraham (’95) Mr. Kurt Anthony Abrams Jr. (’12) Mr. and Mrs. Kurt A. Abrams Mr. Rommel Acuna (’93) Mr. Mod. Razif Ahmad (’87) Ms. Sameirah Nasrin Ahsan (’11) The Air Products Foundation Mr. Temitayo Olumide Akinsanya (’11) Mr. Mahmood Ishaq Alhusseini (’12) Mr. Mustafa Abdullah A. Alkhabbaz (’11) Ms. Sarah Allenby Ms. Shaima Esam Al-Saif (’11) Mr. and Mrs. Dilip Amin Paul A. and Mary K. Anderson Mr. Augusto Emil Andres Jr. (’86) Mr. Victor Manuel Angel Mosti (’11) Miss Susan J. Angell§ (’86) Mr. Pluton Angjeli (’11) Anonymous (’11) Mr. Lewis S. Applebaum§ (’56) Ms. Linda Armstrong Mr. Gregory Terzian Arzoomanian (’84) Mr. Vivek Jayant Ashar (’09, ’11) Mr. Michael Olawale Ashenuga (’92) Ms. Elisabeth Annette Ashforth (’97, GSM’08) Mr. Pantases Athanasiou§ (’67, ’69) Mrs. Susan Audy-Jreige (’90)

† Faculty/Staff § 5-Year Consecutive Donor

Mr. Michael W. Axelrod (’82) Mr. Darryl Ayers Ms. Azatuhi Ruth Ayrikyan (’11) Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey Baker Mr. Stanley N. Baker Jr. (’69) Mr. Youssef G. Bakhos (’82) Mr. Noah Sylvan Balder (’11) Mr. Raymond F. Ball (’72) Mr. Edward M. Ballanco (’91) Ms. Carolyn Elizabeth Barber (’11) Ms. Stephanie Lynn Barnes (’11) Mr. and Mrs. Max Barrasso Mrs. Beverly A. Barrett (’78) Mr. Thomas S. Bartkiewicz (’82) Ms. Ellen Bartlett Dr. Carissa Lynn Bellardine Black (’01, ’03, ’06) Mr. Eric Albiny Bene (’95) Mr. Bryan H. Benesch (’78) Mr. Ronald A. Benius§ (’66) Mr. Stanislav Beran§ (’69) Mr. and Mrs. William Bergersen Mr. Jerry Lawrence Berkowitz (’98) Dr. James Bethune† (’64, GSM’74, SED’91) Ms. Genevieve Marie Betro (’07) Mr. Steve M. Beyers (’82) Mrs. Cecile Beyh (’87) Ms. Nidhi Bhatia (’00, GRS’01) Ms. Dale E. Binggeli Mr. and Mrs. Barney Black Dr. Lauren Deems Black (’03, ’06) Dr. Kim Lois Blackwell (’81) Ms. Laura Catherine Blaha (’11) Mr. Steven Blaha Mr. Gregory Ernest Blanchard§ (’96) Mr. Trygve M. Blix (’61) Mr. Daniel Lorenzo Blum (’95, GSM’95) Krista Blum Mr. Edward Blundell Mr. Roman Bokhenik (’10) Mr. Mark E. Bonadies (’95) Mr. Gregory Michael Boumil (’11) Mr. Leonidas Boutsikaris Mr. Mark R. Bowler Mr. Charles Christopher Boyle III (’86) Mr. Leonard W. Boyle (’61) Mr. and Mrs. Thomas P. Boyle Mr. and Mrs. Kevin Brandenburg Mr. Harry T. Breul§ (’55) Ms. Sharon M. Britton (’83)

Mr. John C. Broderick (’70, ’77) Ms. Susan A. Brooks Ms. Christine Meredyth Brown (’11) Ms. Kim E. Bryant (’87) Mr. Adam Bulakowski (’99) Mr. and Mrs. Kevin F. Burke§ Mr. Jeffrey Michael Campbell (’09) Captain Ezra Betzalel Caplan (’04) Mr. Mark F. Cardono§ (’91) Mr. Matthew Francis Carey (’09) Ms. Gina Marie Carrillo (’97) Mr. Douglas Boyd Carssow (’06, ’10) Mr. Thomas William Cashel III (’11) Mr. and Mrs. Victor Cervantes Sr. Dr. Thomas Eugene Chamberlain (’61) Ms. Qina Chan Mr. William L. Chan (’79, ’85) Mr. Peter I-Tsyuen Chang (’11) Mr. John Chen (’94) Ms. Pei-Rong Chiang Mr. Nicholas Robert Child (’11) Mr. Robert Chin (’70) Ms. Susan Y. Chin (SED’75) Ms. Cynthia Choate Mr. Steven Seokkyu Choi (’06) Ms. Michelle Christie Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Chu Dr. Kengyeh Ken Chu (’11) Mr. and Mrs. Jacinto Chua Ms. Tricia Kay Clark (’99) Mr. Weston St. Aubin Clarke (’86) Mr. Alexander Claudius Clausen (’09) Mr. John Colarusso (’61) Mr. Austin Daniel Collins (’11) Mr. David C. Collins (’05) Mr. Brian G. Colozzi§ (’77) Mr. Scott David Conlon (’87) Consolidated Edison Company Mrs. Anne M. Cooper-Marquis (SON’55) Thomas Costigan Mr. Paul Couto§ (’94) Mr. Kevin Cowen (’84) Mr. Theodore A. Critikos (’62) Mr. Carleton W. Crockett (’80) Crockett and Associates Mr. Robert E. Crotty (’68) Mr. Brian Joseph Cruise (’97)

° Dean’s Engineering Leadership Advisory Board • West Coast Alumni Leadership Council

Dr. Hengdong Cui (’06, ’07) Mr. David Dalgarno Mr. H. Alan Daniels§ (’59) Mr. Dennis J. D’Antona§ (’73) Mr. Michael D’Arrigo (’90) Ms. Neha Hemang Dave (’11) Mr. Benjamin N. Davies (’65) Mr. J. Evan Deardorff (’93) Ms. Alicia Nicole DeCesaris (’94) Mr. Joseph J. DeFilippo (’59) Ms. Rachel A. Delucas (’08) Mr. Robert J. D’Entremont§ (’62) Ms. Kelly Ann Detra (’92) Ms. Lisa Carr De Vine (’87, MET’91) Mr. Gabriel V. DiFilippo (’58) Mr. and Mrs. Ronald DiGiacomo Mr. Bryan T. Digovanni (’89) Mr. Joseph James DiLorenzo (’84) Mr. Sean Patrick Docherty (’11) Mr. and Mrs. David Domenick Ms. Dianne Donahue Mr. Walter Donatelli (’71) Ms. Weina Dorsky§ (’03) Ms. Patricia M. Dow Mrs. Heather A. Doyle (CAS’77) Mr. Ping Du (’11) Mr. Andrew Edward Dudek (’03) Ms. Meredith Anne Duffy (’11) Mr. Nicholas Nuccio Dunn (’11) Mr. and Mrs. Douglas M. Duritza Mr. Timothy Michael Durkin (’09) Ms. Eliza Dutra Captain John A. Duval, USAF (’89) Mrs. Maria Theresa Earle (’85) Mr. David S. Ehrhart§ (’92) Mr. Eric Daniel Eichenbaum (’11) Gerald Richard Eisler, PhD § (’72) Ms. Monica Ling Eng (’11) Mr. Michael L. Epstein (’87) The Honorable Anne Everest Wojtkowski (’56) Mr. Timothy Feeney Mr. David Louis Feldman§ (’66) Mrs. Benita J. Felmus (’79) Ms. Andrea Beth Fiaschetti (’07) Ms. Johanna Therese Fifi (’96, MED’00) Mr. Jonathan Finkle (’85) Mr. and Mrs. Justin E. Fischer Mr. Ian Michael Flaherty (’11) Ms. Marie C. Flaherty Mr. Robert J. Flaherty Jr.§ (’68) Mr. Justin Flammia (’06) Mr. and Mrs. James Flanigon Dr. James Patrick Flanigon (’09, GRS’09) Mr. and Mrs. Kevin Flynn

Mr. Robert H. Foney (’87) Mr. Harvey K. Ford (’64) Mrs. Edith Greta Fortado (’85) Mr. Donald Allen Foster§ (’92) Lt. Colonel Maurice H. Foster, USAF (Ret.) (’53) Mr. Nicholas Sebastian Fountoulakis (’11) Mr. Stavros Fountoulakis Ms. Mary Louise Fowler (’11) Mr. Frederic Frazier Mr. Robert Frederic Frechette (’93) Mr. Paul A. French (’83, CAS’83) Mr. Stephen P. Fricke (’91) Mr. Kevin Scott Frye (’88) Dr. Roger Joseph Gagnon§ (’68) Mr. John Edward Gancarz (’11) Mr. Moustafa Omar GarciaBengochea (’11) Mrs. Sharon B. Garde§ (’86) Dr. Timothy Stevens Gardner• (’00) Mr. Marcus Garza Mr. and Mrs. Donald Gates Larry Gedelman Genentech Employee Giving Program Mr. Jeffrey Dickey Gereige (’11) Barry and Sandra Gertz Mr. George L. Getchell§ (’54) Mr. Subhen Ghosh Mr. Alexander Symeon Giannakos (’11) Mr. Irving Samuel Giller (’07) Ms. Christina Giordano Mr. Nicholas Joseph Giordano (’11) Mr. Zaev Givol Ms. Vasilika Gjoka Mr. Ryan E. Gleason (’08) Mr. Frederick G. W. Gleitsmann§ (’61) Mr. Frank Goetz Mr. Steven Michael Goetz (’11) Mr. Scott Samuel Goldfarb (’11) Mr. Steven J. Goldman (’91) Mrs. Jennifer L. Goode (’90) Mr. Edward M. Govoni (’69) Ms. Karen Grasso Mrs. Katherine Jedzinak Greaney (’00) Mr. Salvatore Greco Jr. (’68) Mr. Francis A. Greene Jr. (’83) Ms. Marilyn Gresham Lt. Colonel Mark J. C. Griffin (’89) Ms. Shannon Kathleen Grover (’11) Mr. Rui Guo (’07) Dr. Song Guo (’07, ’11)

Assistant Professor Stormy Attaway

Professor Attaway Donates Textbook Royalties to Annual Fund Increased sales of Assistant Professor Stormy Attaway’s (ME) textbook, MATLAB: A Practical Introduction to Programming and Problem Solving, is good news not only for the many students who will benefit from Attaway’s instruction in software development, but also for undergraduates in programs and activities supported by the College of Engineering Annual Fund. That’s because each year Attaway donates 10 percent of her royalties from book sales to College of Engineering funds. Net sales have increased every year since the first edition was published in 2009. “I am very gratified that so many people are adopting not just the book but the way that we’re teaching programming here at BU,” says Attaway. “With the format of ENG EK 127 [Introduction to Engineering Computation], we really started doing something

different: teaching not just programming concepts using MATLAB, but also how to use MATLAB efficiently—a side-by-side approach that I call ‘The Programming Concept’ and ‘The Efficient Method.’ In a nutshell, every time a problem is posed, I say, ‘Here’s the programming method, so you understand the concept—but here is also the built-in function in MATLAB that will do it for you.’” Attaway decided to write and publish the textbook when she observed that there weren’t any books on the market that had taken this approach. According to one of Attaway’s contacts at The MathWorks (the Natick, Massachusetts-based company that produces the MATLAB software), an article on EK 127 and the textbook in the company’s electronic academic digest in 2010 was the publication’s most clicked-on article ever. Sales of the book have been so strong that the second edition, originally planned for 2012, was released in August. Hopefully that will mean good news again for next year. —Mark Dwortzan

E n g i n ee r fall 2 011 www.bu.edu/eng

alumni

honor roll

Idea Launcher

At workstations throughout the College’s brand-new Imagineering Laboratory, ENG undergraduates will translate engineering concepts into prototypes as professors offer advice and peers look on. “There should be a place where students can take their own ideas, or those emerging from dorm room discussions, and get the guidance and support to make them real,” says Binoy K. Singh, MD (BME’89), whose generous pledge helped transform a vision shared by College of Engineering Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen and Assistant Dean of Development & Alumni Relations Bruce Jordan into the new “ There should be facility. “The lab reflects my own strong belief in the importance of a place where students can take enabling successful transitions from ideas and visions to solutions.” their own ideas, Indeed, Singh—assistant profesor those emerging sor of clinical medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians from dorm room and Surgeons and clinical cardiolodiscussions, and gist and director of clinical business get the guidance development at Columbia University Medical Center/New York-Presbyterian and support Hospital—was inspired to become a to make them cardiologist by an explosion of ideas real,” says Binoy that became solutions. He couldn’t K. Singh, MD wait to work with the latest technologies—from diagnostic imaging (BME’89) of the new Imagineering to through-the-skin therapeutic devices—designed to monitor and Laboratory. treat the world’s most prevalent illness, cardiovascular disease. An expert in noninvasive imaging of the cardiovascular system, Singh routinely logs 14-hour days treating patients; teaching medical school students, internal medicine residents and cardiology fellows; and strategizing on how to grow the university’s faculty clinical practice organization. “My experience at BU not only helped prepare me for a fulfilling clinical career, but also inspired me to take on new roles and responsibilities and evolve as a professional and human being,” he says. Perhaps the greatest influences on Singh’s professional and personal development have been his

binoy k. singh, MD (BME’89)

grandfather, an educator in India who worked to help impoverished families become more self-sufficient through education and entrepreneurship, and his father, a veterinarian who appreciated the value of education as a foundation for achievement. “Both my father and grandfather instilled in me a commitment to lifelong learning and public service,” says Singh. Inspired by that commitment, he has long supported the ENG Annual Fund and looks forward to serving on the Dean’s Advisory Board in December. “I contribute to the Annual Fund because it supports programs that give students tremendous opportunities to apply classroom principles and ideas in the lab and create real-world solutions,” Singh says. “As a Board member, I hope to provide some insight into how the College can be influential in health care, not only impacting delivery through technology but also in partnering with health care organizations to develop systematic ways to provide effective health care and reduce costs.”

Photo courtesy of Binoy K. Singh

BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

Engineering Annual Fund Supporters (continued) Mr. Boris Gurevich Joseph E. Hale, PhD (’83) Mr. William T. Hamilton§ (’68, MET’75) Miss Susan Marie Hammel§ (’86) Mr. Robert Andrew Hardy (’04) Mr. Lance D. Harry (’94) Ms. Anne Elizabeth Hasson (’88) Mr. and Mrs. Gerard A. Hathaway Mr. Michael Gerard Hathaway (’11) Mr. James D. Hayden (’91) Mr. Richard A. Heath (’80) Professor Wendy HeigerBernays† Mr. Martin C. Herbordt† Ms. Renee Herold Anne E. Hines, PhD § (’87) Ms. Kristina Hogstrom (’11) Mr. Brandon Le Hong (’11) Mr. Tong Hong Mr. Thongchai Hongsmatip (’00) Mr. Peter T. Houston§ (’58) Mr. Peter F. Hryniewicz III (’86) Mr. C. Arthur Hughes (’62) Mr. Jaemin Huh (’11) Ms. Vanessa S. Hummel (’83) Mr. and Mrs. George Huntoon Ms. Michelle Crystal Hurtado (’11) Mr. and Mrs. Robert Hurtado Mr. Robert J. Iacovone§ (’69) Miss Suzanne E. Ianni (’84) Mr. Hany N. Ibrahim (’93) Mr. Massnoon Ifaz (’11) Mr. William M. Incera (’92) Mr. Thomas Inglin Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Ingram Mr. Anastasios Ioannidis§ (’87) Mr. and Mrs. Thomas M. Isaac Ms. Kathy Isobe Mr. John Jabara Jr. (’83) Ms. Anna Jablonka (’94) Mr. Joseph Edward Jablonski (’11) Ms. Lexyne McNealy Jackson (’02) Mr. William T. Jackson (’57) Mr. Mufaddal A. Jafferji (’11) Mr. Raymond L. Jalette† (’71, MET’74) Ms. Leslie McComb James (’86) Mr. Richard S. Jamieson§ (’62) Mr. and Mrs. Richard Jennings Mr. Alfred S. Johnson§ (’64) Ms. Allison Christine Johnson (’97)

† Faculty/Staff § 5-Year Consecutive Donor

Mr. Aleksander Jan Jonca (’10) Mr. Andrzej Jonca Fredrick Jones Mr. Jeremiah Blair Jones (’11) Mr. Zintis Jones (’11) Maria Joseph Mr. Hyun Jun Jung§ (’93) Mr. Gary Kaftan§ (’60) Mr. Michael H. Kagan§ (’83) Mr. and Mrs. Michael S. Kalfin Mr. Daniel Robert Kallman§ (’94) Mr. Khaled T. Kanaan (’85) Mr. John D. Kariouk§ (’84) Mr. Walter S. Katuschenko (’60) Mr. Lev Katz (’04) Mr. Edward A. Kazanjian Jr. (’68) Ms. Maureen Rose Keenan (’11) Mr. and Mrs. Harry Kennedy Mr. and Mrs. Richard L. Kent Dr. Duk Joong Kim† (’05, ’08) Mr. Charles H. Kimball (’66) Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan King Ms. Kathleen King Mrs. Johanna Kipping-Ruane Mrs. Virginia C. Kohlmann (’79) Mr. Jadeson Leng Komolvipat (’12) Mr. Chris S. Kotsiopoulos (’83) Mr. Peter Thomas Kuchler§ (’92) Mr. and Mrs. Dinesh Kumar Ms. Abena Nyarkomah Kwakyi (’11) Mr. Sze Chung Kwok (’96) Ms. Francine Lalooses§ (’02, ’03) Mr. Stephen Peter Lalooses§ (’99) Ms. Rynn Lamb Mr. Michael Robert Lamprecht (’05) Mr. Ronnie Lau Mr. Ryan Kin Wah Lau (’07) Mr. Tuan A. Le (’82) Ms. Kristen L. Lee (’11) Ms. Maegan Lee (’11) Mr. Daniel John Leonardis§ (’04) Mr. David E. Lessard (’11) Mr. Larry Leszczynski (’85) Mr. Alexander D. Leung (’11) Mr. Peter W. Levalley Mr. Alexander Levit Mr. and Mrs. Fu Li Mr. Jeffrey Powell Li (’09, GRS’09) Miss Mary Chong-Chin Liau (’88) Mr. Michael Lingenfelter Mr. Tianchen Liu (’11) Ms. Alison Shaw-Tien Lo (’11)

Mr. Peter Gerard Lombardozzi§ Mr. and Mrs. James Lomenzo Ms. Alice M. Lovely Ms. Jeannie J. Lu (’95, ’96; MET ’00) Ms. Vivian Joy Luh (’05) Ms. Margaret Lundin§ (’73) Mr. and Mrs. Michael Lundy Mr. Zhi Wei Luo Ms. Barbara F. Lynch§ (’82) Mr. and Mrs. Karl J. Lynch Mr. Andrew Jacob Lyons (’05) Ms. Cynthia Lysek§ Mr. Allen Ma (’11) Mr. Robert MacDonald Ms. Patricia MacDougall Ms. Samantha Ann MacDougall (’11) Ms. Heather Nicole Macken (’10) Ms. Patricia MacNeil Mr. Joseph John Madden (’60) Mrs. Agnes D. Malaret-Collazo§ (’87) Mr. Charles David Maneval (’11) Mr. Daniel Wai Heng Mang (’07) Ms. Lacey Katherine Mannex (’11) Mr. Berj M. Manoushagian (’76, ’82) Mr. Edward S. Mansfield§ (’64, ’68) Mr. Djikolngar Maouyo Mr. Stephen Jojimbai Maouyo (’11) Ms. Haley Lynn Marks (’11) Ms. Jacqueline Ann Martin (’10) Mr. Gregory J. Mascoli (’88) Mr. Dana Mashayekh (’11) Mrs. Michelle M. Master (’98) Mr. Peter F. Masucci§ (’70) Mr. Manzer Masud Mr. Robert H. Mathews§ (’65) Ms. Monika Mathur (’11) Mr. Vincent J. Mauro (’80) Ms. Leshelle Ramona May (’88) Dr. Robert E. McAulay Ms. Erin McCann Mr. Lawrence N. McCarthy Jr. (’69) Mr. Francis P. McDermott§ (’62) Ms. Megan Elizabeth McGhee (’11) Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence J. McGuirk Ms. Loretta C. H. McHugh (’00) Mr. Adam Thomas McLaughlin (’11)

° Dean’s Engineering Leadership Advisory Board • West Coast Alumni Leadership Council

Ms. Marlene McLean Mr. Neil P. McManus§ (’59) Mr. Eddie McMorrow (’92, GSM’95) The Medtronic Foundation Mr. Karan Kamlesh Mehta (’11) Dr. Philip J. Melchiorre (’84) Mr. Thiago Guedes De Melo (’11) Ms. Beatriz Adriana Mendez Lora (’88) Ms. Nancy T. Mendonca (’09) Mr. and Mrs. Dave Menicosy Mr. Edward K. Mensah (MET’11) Ms. Nancy Messercola Ms. Deborah H. Miller Mr. Jacob Isaac Miller (’08) Mr. James G. Miller§ (’84) Mr. James J. Miller Mr. Dmitriy Miniovich Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Mohn Mr. and Mrs. Manfred Moik Ms. Moira Brigid Molloy (’11) Mr. Jarred Raymund Mondonedo (’11) Mr. Walter J. Montague (’56) Mr. Mark S. Moreira (’84) Mr. Michael Melo Moreira (’11) Mr. Fred Morrison§ (’62) Mr. Maximillian Mojo Morse (’11) Mr. Kim Mosley Mr. Donald K. Moulthrop (’49) Mr. Tanvir Ahmed Muktadir (’11) Ms. Mary A. Murphy Mr. Christopher Michael Myers (’11) Mr. Michael M. Nadeau Mr. Masato Nakanishi (’11) Mr. Kyung Jun Nam (’95, ’98) Ms. Neesha Jitendra Nathwani (’11) Mr. Akshay Navaladi (’09) Miss Tamara Sue Ng-Yow (’87, GSM’88) Mr. and Mrs. Herman Nichols Mr. Burt D. Ochs (’83) Mr. Justin O’Connor Mr. Jon P. Olafsson (’01) Mr. Andrew H. Olney§ (’90) Mr. Craig Steven Olson (’90) Mr. Fernando Rey Ortega (’11) Mr. Dennis John Osgood (’07) Mr. Robert W. Paglierani (’66) Ms. Songeeta Palchaudhuri (’03) Cristina M. Palumbo, MD (’95, MED’99) Mr. Joseph Panetta Mr. and Mrs. Peter Pappas Mr. Michael D. Paquette (’84)

Mr. Scott Harold Parmenter (’01, ’04) Mr. Bharat Patel Mr. Hemant Patel Nimesh Suman Patel, MD (’07, MED’11) Mrs. Chrysanthea Kyprios Paul (’90) Ms. Kirsten H. Paulson (’82) Mr. Leonard H. Pauze Jr. (’57) Mr. Richard F. Peach (’88) Mr. Patrick Alan Pease (’11) Mr. Brian E. Pecon (’57, ’65) Ms. Chelsea L. Peragallo (’11) Mr. and Mrs. Frank Perry Mr. Daniel Burr Peterson (’11) Mr. Robert C. Peterson§ (’57) Mrs. Jacqueline Petit (’83) Pfizer Foundation§ Philips Electronics North America Corporation Ms. Brittany O’Neill Phillips (’11) Mr. Douglas E. Phillips (’66) Mr. Anthony C. Pippo Jr. (’67) Joseph J. Pirrello Dr. Anthony Nicholas Pirri§ (’64) Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Poulin Ms. Raelynn Praetorius Ms. Stephanie Lynn Prager (’08) Mr. Bruce G. Pratt (’69) Ms. Jacqueline Denise Prendergast (’11) Ms. Nancy Prendergast Mrs. Cheryl Lynn Pritchard (’86) Mr. David Provencher Ms. Joanna Pyun (’10) Mr. and Mrs. Michael Quinlivan Ms. Devika Radhakrishnan Mr. and Mrs. Gerardo Ravago Ms. Ellen E. Reavey (’11) Mr. Vaibhav Nallappa Reddy (’11) Dr. Roberto Reif (’08) Mr. Daniel Reilly Mr. and Mrs. Alvaro Reina Mr. Jared Benjamin Reiter (’12) Mr. Alejandro Restrepo (’02) Ms. Sandra Dee Reulet (’86) Mr. Enrico Reyes Mr. Gregory William Reynolds (’11) Mr. John R. Rezendes (’65) Mr. Joo Sub Rhee (’06) Mr. Kenneth Barry Rice (’84, MET’96) Mr. Mark Gerard Rice (’11) Annely Meris Richardson, MD (’02, MED’08) Ms. Karen G. Richardson (’85)

Mr. Anthony J. Rivera (’89) Mr. Patrick John Robinson (’11) Mr. Paul Carlos Rocheteau (’11) Mr. and Mrs. Frank A. Rodrigues Mr. John Rooker Mr. Arthur J. Rosenwach (’68) Ms. Inna Rozenberg Mrs. Rochelle Erin Rucinski (’98) Ms. Caroline Elizabeth Saad (’11) Mr. and Mrs. Steven Sacher Dr. Priya Sankar (’96) Mr. Dane Nicholas Sarcone (’11) Mr. Jonathan Gary Sawicki (’11) Mr. John A. Scaramuzzo Jr. (’87) Dr. and Mrs. Mark A. Schickler Mrs. Denise M. Schier§ (’81) Mr. Thomas G. Schlatter (’94) Mr. and Mrs. Scott Schmidt Mr. Bertram J. Schmitz Jr. (’62) Mr. Robert E. Schneider (’79) Mr. Jeffrie Francis Schreier (’08) Mr. John Joseph Scott (’89) Mr. Matthew Joseph Selbach (’11) Mr. Michael Selover Ms. Rachel Lee Seraspe (’04) Mr. Brian Michael Serra (’11) Mr. Paul Shao (’01) Mr. William Shaw Mr. James F. Shea (’61) Mr. Joseph Salvatore Shifrin (’11) Ms. Minori Katherine Shimizu (’11) Mr. Robert J. Shimkus (’68) Ms. Maria Shivers Mr. Gordon A. Shogren§ (’59) Mr. Joshua Alan Siegel (’11) Mr. and Mrs. Eden Silva Miss Tracy M. Sioussat Mr. Elie Aaron Sirotta† (’01, GSM’08) Dr. Stacey Linda Sirotta (SAR’01, ’03, ’08) Mr. Christopher Smith Mr. John F. Smith§ (’63) Dr. Richard E. Smith (’76) Mrs. Jessica Ann Sonnenfeld§ (’04) Mr. and Mrs. David Soong Mr. and Mrs. Grant T. Southard Mr. Joshua Lyndon Spaulding (’08) Miss Katherine Elizabeth Spignese (’85) Mr. John M. Stefanski (’11) Ms. Laura M. Stefanski Ms. Stephanie Danelle Steichen (’11) Tamara Stephen, Esq. (’92) Mr. Jeffrey Michael Sternberg (’11)

E n g i n ee r fall 2 011 www.bu.edu/eng

alumni

honor roll

Engineering Annual Fund Supporters (continued) Ms. Jessica Rose Strader (’11) Mr. Paul S. Strati (’52) Mr. Armand Stravato§ (’58, CGS’57) Mr. Francisco Javier Suarez Pedraza (’11) Mr. John-Michael Sungur (’11) Ms. Lavanya Suresh (’04) Mr. Michael Ross Sutton (’11) Ms. Natalie Alys Swenson (’11) Mr. Edward L. Symonds (’87) Ms. Laura Taddonio Takeda Millennium Mr. Zafar Takhirov (’12) Mr. Derek William Tangard (’11) Mr. Donald Tangard Dr. Min Tang-Schomer (’06) Mr. Daoud Tayeh (’07, MET’10) Ms. Charlene Taylor Mrs. Yoko Sano Taylor (’92) Mr. Gabriel M. Terrenzio§ (’56, ’57) Mr. Tansukh M. Thanki (’71) Mr. Harry W. Thornton (’53) Ms. Kristin Thorp Ms. Lisa Diane Tilley-Newman (’98) Mr. Ike Costas Tingos (’91, ’94) Dr. Bruce Paul Tis (’95) Mr. Richard W. Tong (’06) Ms. Kendra Lara Toole (’11) Morris Trichon, PhD (’68) Mr. Fernando Trindade (’06) Ms. Pia Pallavi Trivedi (’11) Mr. Kevin Renn Tseng (’91) Ensign Justin Vincent Tworek (’10) Ms. Felice Reyna Ulibarri (’11) Mr. Wes Uy (’11) Mr. Marck Alexander Vaisman (’97) Mr. Richard A. Vanetzian (’60) Ms. Lauren Elizabeth Varona (’08) Mr. Barry John Veltman (’11) Mr. Paul Michael Vermilion (’11, CAS ’11) Mr. Joshua Tan Villanueva (’11) Ms. Carrie A. Vinch (’88) Dr. Thomas J. Vitolo (’11) Mr. Paul Joseph Vizzio (’10) Mr. and Mrs. Richard L. Voltz Jr. Mr. Boris Vulikh Dr. Gregory John Wagner§ (’96) Mr. Kenneth William Wagner (’89)

† Faculty/Staff § 5-Year Consecutive Donor

Ms. Roxanna Seledda Walker (’11) Mr. Edmund J. Walsh Jr.§ (’83, ’83) Patti and Frank Walsh Mr. Gregory Warda Mr. Melvin I. Wartel (’63) Ms. Patricia R. Weber Mr. Brede Joseph Wegener (’11) Mr. Norman S. Weinberg (’64) Ms. Jeannette Locke Wellman§ (’87) Mr. Joel Fritz West (’57) Mrs. Heather Bard White (’92) Ms. Susan Whitehurst Mr. Alexander David Whitnall (’08) Ms. Holly Widanka Ms. Maryann Wikenczy Dr. Adrian Daniel Williams (’01, ’07) Ms. Barbara Maria Wojtlowski (’08) Mr. and Mrs. Richard D. Wolcott Mrs. Diane M. Wolenski (’85) Mr. Timothy Sean Wolfe (’11) Joyce Wong, PhD† Mr. Sui Kong Wong Mr. Kenneth Smith Woodard (’73) Mr. David M. Woodcock Ms. Elizabeth Suzanne Woodcock (’11) Mr. John W. Wright Mr. Barry Quan Wu§ (’86, ’92) Mr. Haotian Wu (’11) Mr. Holson A. Yap (’92, ’05) Mr. Robert Quin Yee (’85) Miss Rhan Yi (’88) Mr. Yuan Yin (’11) Dr. Anthony Michael Yitts (’88, ’92) Ms. Julie Jie Ling Young (’07) Mr. Guylherme Tobias Zaniratto (’98) Dr. Qingtai Zhai (’04, ’07) Mr. William R. Zolla (’61) Mr. Nicholas Taylor Zolnierz (’10) Mr. Steven Henry Zysman (’85)

Other ENG Funds In addition to contributions for specific research projects (such as the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Translational Research Partnership and the Henry Luce Foundation Professorship awards), the College also receives support from alumni, friends and foundations for the following programs:

Anita Cuadrado Memorial Fund Presents annual awards to one or more ENG students who best exemplify the late Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Program’s spirit, commitment to the College and University and dedication to helping undergraduates. Adam Miller Senior Project Fund Supports the Biomedical Engineering Department’s Senior Project Program, including the annual Adam Miller Award for outstanding BME senior research project. Merrill Ebner Fund This fund supports student-based programs that foster creative design in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, with particular emphasis on supporting students interested in manufacturing engineering. This fund was started by Professor Merrill Ebner and continues in his honor. Ging S. Lee Community Service Award Fund Annually awards one or more ENG seniors who have made outstanding contributions in the area of community service. This awards honors Ging S. Lee (’70).

donors to other funds $1,000,000 or more Anonymous

$500,000–$999,999 Juvenile Diabetes Foundation Int’l

$250,000–$499,999 Leona & Harry Helmsley Charitable Trust

$100,000–$249,999 Anonymous Capella Photonics Inc. Dithera The Ellison Medical Foundation Mr. Ronald Gene Garriques (’86) Hartwell Foundation Mr. Joseph P. Healey° (’88) The Henry Luce Foundation Inc.§ Oxford Nanopore Technologies Limited Richard Reidy (SMG’82) and Minda Reidy (SMG’82, GSM’84)°

$50,000–$99,999 Burroughs Wellcome Fund Mr. and Mrs. Roger A. Dorf° (’70) The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Inc. Focused Ultrasound Surgery Foundation Max Kade Foundation Kern Family Foundation The Mitre Corporation Ohio Aerospace Institute Oracle Corporation US Israel Binational Science Foundation

$25,000–$49,999 Agilent Technologies Mr. Stephen D. Bechtel Jr. S. D. Bechtel Jr. Foundation Deutsche Telecom ExxonMobil Research & Engineering Co.

$10,000–$24,999 IBM Corporation Binoy K. Singh, MD° (’89) Mr. and Mrs. Philip Taymor University of Cyprus

° Dean’s Engineering Leadership Advisory Board • West Coast Alumni Leadership Council

BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

class notes Want to earn an ENG T-shirt? Send your class notes submissions to engalum@bu.edu or visit www.bu.edu/eng/ alumni. All published notes receive a red BU Engineering T-shirt!

$1,000–$9,999 American Heart Association Mr. and Mrs. Bahman Atefi Professor Stormy Attaway† (GRS’84, GRS’88) Autodesk, Inc. BBN Technologies Professor Thomas G. Bifano†§ Boston Micromachines Corporation Natalia Broude, PhD† Mr. Adam D. Crescenzi§° (’64) Professor Theo A. De Winter† Mrs. Hanna G. Evans Lightwave Power Mrs. Marguerite P. Matson (’62, GSM’67) The Philanthropic Initiative Inc. Mr. and Mrs. Michael D. Poling Mr. Richard C. Scully• (’81, SMG’78) Yawkey Foundation

$500–$999 Mr. Christopher A. Frail (’97) Mrs. Melissa Frail (’97) Bryn J. H. Reina, MD (SAR’92) G. Anthony Reina, MD (’93)

$100–$499 Mrs. Laura J. Bickmeier (’98) Ms. Ana Bustin Mr. Denis C. Bustin Thomas M. DiCicco Jr., MD (’01) Mr. Jose Rolando Esquivel (’88) Mr. Stephen P. Forast (’91, ’94) Mr. Steven G. Friedlander (CFA’80) Mr. John M. Garvey§ (’86) Lydia M. Gregoret, PhD (CAS’86) Professor William Hauser† Dr. Micah A. Jacobs (’99) Mrs. Heather Johnson-Tracey (’91) Mr. Robert H. Locke (’63) MFS Investment Management Novartis Mr. Samit Jayanti Patel (’97) Mr. Jeffrey David Ricotta (’04) Mr. Philippe Sikias (’00) Mrs. Josephine Wasserman Mr. Michael Wasserman

Up to $100 Ms. Lindsay Elizabeth Carlson (’11) Mr. Sean Michael DeLeo (’11) Ms. Julia Louise Delogu (’09) Ms. Helaine R. Friedlander† (SED’75) Mrs. Beth P. Robert (’89, ’04; GSM’04) Ms. Elena Beth Simoncini (’10) Tamara Stephen, Esq. (’92) Lawrence B. Tena, MD (’88)

1955 John X. Tsirimokos, BS, La Jolla, California • John has been retired for 17 years. His last position at General Dynamics was Director of Systems Engineering, Cruise Missile Programs. He spends his summers on his yacht in Catalina, watching the San Diego Chargers from 50-yardline seats and golfing weekly at Torrey Pines. Email John at jxt@san.rr.com.

1958 Charles S. Asmar Jr., BS, Chevy Chase, Maryland • Charles is a consultant manager for the Washington, D.C.-based Critical Path Management Consultants, which serves the construction industry. Email him at csasmar@ cpmconsult.com.

1961 Albert Grunow, BS, Barefoot Bay, Florida • Albert wants to encourage people to promote organ donation. He had a heart transplant in 1996 and this year will celebrate his 15th year with his second heart. He and his wife also celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in June. Email Albert at AlGrunow@aol.com. Baxter Walsh, BS, Orange, Connecticut • Baxter would love to hear from former classmates and members of Lambda Chi, and can be reached at bkw@staffage.com.

1962 Stanley N. Berman, BS, Framingham, Massachusetts • After many years in sales in the electrical and lighting industry, Stanley has retired and spends his time with his wife of 49 years, Carone Brenda Berman (SED’60), their three adult children and their six grandchildren. They are particularly proud that their oldest grandchild, Amanda Rachel Doamaral, is a senior at BU. Stanley looks forward to hearing from members of the 1962 CIT class. Email him at snberman@aol.com. Richard Coco, BS, Reading, Massachusetts • Richard retired in 2004 from MIT’s Laboratory for Nuclear Science,

where he served as project engineer on the LHC/ATLAS high-energy physics detector at CERN. Previously, he worked as project engineer for the Draper Laboratory, where he was responsible for delivering momentum/reaction wheels for military/commercial satellite attitude control. “Looking forward to celebrating our class’s 50th reunion in 2012!” he writes. Email Richard at rhcoco@att.net.

1966 Bahram Sadri, BS, Tehran, Iran • Bahram served as general manager of John Deere in Iran.

1967 John L. LaBate, BS, Cumming, Georgia • John and his wife, Angel, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on August 6. “It has been a wonderful journey!” he writes.

1985 Albert P. James Jr., BS, GSM’95, Newton, Massachusetts • Albert started working at Ambient Corporation in Newton on June 20 as the principal mechanical engineer for simulation (finite element analysis) and validation (mechanical) testing. Ambient Corporation makes equipment to monitor the electrical grid for U.S. utility companies. Email Albert at albertjames@ comcast.net.

1988 Lawrence B. Tena, BS • Lawrence B. Tena, MD, a board certified radiation oncologist, just recently opened two state-of-the-art, free-standing radiation oncology centers in Manhattan. Email him at ltena@eastside-oncology. com.

1990 Rebecca A. Bates, BS, MS’96, North Mankato, Minnesota • Rebecca, an associate professor of computer science at Minnesota State University, was awarded an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowship and will spend the upcoming year at the National Science Foundation working with its Division of

Engineering Education & Centers. Based in Arlington, Virginia after September 1, she looks forward to being closer to Boston. Email Rebecca at becky. bates@gmail.com. Alan Taboada, BS, Shrewsbury, New Jersey • Alan, a patent attorney with Moser IP Law Group, and his wife, Judy, recently welcomed their third child, Zoe, in June. Zoe is doing very well, and older siblings Atticus, 4, and Ruby, 2, are very happy with their new sister. Email Alan at ataboada@mtiplaw.com.

1991 George Bauer, MS, Middlebury, Connecticut • George is a project manager at CAE Associates in Middlebury, Connecticut, a provider of CFD and FEA engineering consulting services, training, and ANSYS engineering simulation software. He customizes, develops and instructs in an array of ANSYS courses and has contributed to the company’s free ANSYS resource library. George also provides ANSYS technical support to customers across aerospace, mechanical, biomedical, nuclear, civil engineering and other industries. He is a co-author of the award-winning Integrated Statistical Stress Life Analysis Methodology Utilizing Local Stress Fields and teaches finite element courses at Fairfield University and the University of New Haven. Email George at bauer@caeai. com. David Miller, BS, MS’94, Framingham, Massachusetts • David and his wife, Barbara, welcomed their third child, Aydin Scott, on July 22. Look for them this fall at BU hockey games. On August 1, David started a new job with Tilera in Westboro, Massachusetts; his previous employer, Vitesse, closed its Westford, Massachusetts office after 12 years. Email David at millersonline@alum.bu.edu.

1992 David Ciochetto, BS, Herring Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada • David and his partner recently founded DnASEA, which its peer organizations recognized as the fastest growing nonprofit entity of its kind on the Atlantic seaboard.

E n g i n ee r fall 2 011 www.bu.edu/eng

class notes

DnASEA focuses on academic-level science and engineering consulting work, from grant writing through the research execution to paper writing. Email David at david.ciochetto@gmail.com.

1995 Joshua Cheong, BS, MS, Singapore • Joshua is married with a son, 4, and a daughter, 2. He works as manager of business operations for Asia Pacific/ Japan for the German software company SAP, but considers his real job to be husband and father.

1998 Laura Cutler Bickmeier, BS, Arlington, Massachusetts • Laura and Jeff Bickmeier and big sister Ada welcomed baby brother Karl Avagnen on October 1, 2010. Laura works for MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts and can be reached at ljbick@gmail.com. Prospero Uybarreta, BS, Edwards Air Force Base, California • Prospero and his wife, Janice, announce the birth of their third child, Sierra Belle. Sierra’s siblings, Vic and Ella, are excited to have a new sister! An Air Force experimental test pilot at Edwards AFB, Prospero has served in the Air Force for 13 years. Email him at prosperouybarreta@yahoo.com.

1999 Mark Hodge, MS, GSM’99, Andover, Minnesota • Mark became president and CEO of Pyng Medical Corporation in 2010. He would like to connect with old classmates and BU acquaintances. Email him at mfhodge@alum.bu.edu.

2000 Benjamin Davenny, BS, Somerville, Massachusetts • Benjamin earned a Professional Engineer license in architectural engineering from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He and his wife are expecting a second child in October.

of her studies, she was awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Sarah also participated in a research exchange in Japan through the NSF East Asia Pacific Summer Institutes. Email her at sarahfelix@cal.berkeley.edu.

2001 Peter M. Cirak, BS, MS’07, Tampa, Florida • Pete and his wife Erika and son Alex moved to Florida in April and are looking forward to meeting up with BU alums in the Tampa area. Please email Pete at pmcirak@gmail. com if you would like to have a BU ENG gathering in the Tampa area. James Edwards, MS, Coronado, California • Commander Jim Edwards is “enjoying his second year in command of the Navy’s finest crew and one of its newest warships—USS Freedom (LCS 1),” he writes.

2003 Karen Holden, BS, Virginia Beach, Virginia • Karen served four years in the Navy as a nuclear engineer and now works as a civilian mechanical engineer with the Army Corps of Engineers and with the Seabees in the Navy Reserves. Email her at holdenkl@gmail.com. Joseph Szustakowski, PhD, Framingham, Massachusetts • Joseph is currently head of Biomarker Development Bioinformatics at Novartis in Cambridge, Mass. He leads a group of scientists who analyze large-scale clinical genomics data sets to identify drug response biomarkers. He and his wife, Renee, have two boys. Earl Valencia, BS, Santa Clara, California • After graduating from Stanford University Graduate School of Business in 2009, Earl married his high school prom date from the Philippines, Patricia Oliva, and they now have a 16-monthold son and another on the way. Earl works on the Business Incubation team in Cisco’s Emerging Technologies Group. Email him at earlee@alum.bu.edu.

Sarah Felix, BS, Berkeley, California • Sarah earned a PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. During the course

2004 Jeffrey Ricotta, BS, Dayton, Ohio • Jeff got married on New Year’s Eve 2011 and works in Dayton, Ohio. Francis Gyula Szalay, BS, Herndon, Virginia • In July, Francis started a new position at ARES Corporation as an engineering contractor, and is supporting Aerojet in Gainesville, Virginia. Email him at fszalay@gmail.com.

2005

Mr. Bernard P. Friesecke (’58) North Reading, MA

Carolina Save, BS • After graduation, Carolina sailed around the world with her parents before entering Suffolk University Law School to study patent law. She now works in the patent law department at a Cambridge-based technology company called JumpTap.

Timothy Durkin, BS, Taipei, Taiwan • Timothy is working for Trend Micro in Taipei, Taiwan. Email Timothy at tmdurk@gmail.com.

2010

Eileen Leung, BS, MS’06, GSM’11, Arlington, Massachusetts • Eileen recently earned an MBA with honors from BU’s Graduate School of Management. Her dual concentration was in Strategy and Business Analysis and Operations and Technology Management. She works at Raytheon. Email Eileen at eileen.leung@alum.bu.edu.

Rohan Arun, BS, San Francisco, California • After graduation, Rohan started a company, Viewforge, LLC, based on his senior design project. His investor moved him into his historic mansion in San Francisco, where he set up an office. After more than a year of development, the company plans to deploy a revolutionary live glasses-free 3D system around the U.S. very soon. “All this would not have been possible without Professor Janusz Konrad and the ECE department,” he writes. Email Rohan at rohanarun@gmail.com.

Joe Rollin, BS, Chicago, Illinois • After working in technology project sales and business development for several years, Joe recently graduated with honors from the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business with an MBA in strategy consulting and marketing. He now works at turnaround and restructuring firm Alvarez and Marsal as a management consultant in their Chicago office.

2006 Chun-kai (Darren) Wang, MS, Taipei, Taiwan • Since earning his degree at BU, Darren worked for Google and other “great companies” before founding and serving as CEO of his own business, obook.com, a dedicated book search engine and platform. The company started fundraising this summer. Darren hopes to connect with BU alumni and can be reached at ckwang@obook.com.

Andrew Chow, BS • Andrew is attending the University of Michigan’s

2008

2009

Jordan Feinstein, BS, Omaha, Nebraska • Captain Jordan Feinstein, USAF, and his wife, Pamela Jaye (Wiesner) Feinstein (COM’02), announce the birth of their son, Levi Benjamin Feinstein, on July 12.

2007 PASSINGS

Ross School of Business to complete an MBA degree program. Email him at andrew.s.chow@gmail.com.

Michael S. Koeris, PhD, Cambridge, Massachusetts • Michael is co-founder, president & COO of Novophage, a start up spun out of Professor James Collins’s (BME) lab that provides biological solutions for industrial problems. Novophage raised $5.75 million in its first round of funding in May. Email Michael at mike@novophage.com. Jesse Szatkowski, BS, Hainesport, New Jersey • Jesse has been accepted to medical school. Email him at jpszat@gmail.com. CORRECTION • In the Spring 2011 edition of ENGINEER, the class note for John Kaufhold (BS’95, PhD’01) should have listed him as completing a PhD (rather than MS) degree in 2001.

All class notes are edited for space considerations.

BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

Bringing the Engineering Annual Fund Even More Success Your outstanding outpouring of generosity has allowed the Engineering Annual Fund to shatter records again this year, from increasing the overall number of donors by 21 percent to marking its fourth consecutive year of record revenue. Thanks to your contributions, the EAF has nearly tripled over the past four years alone. Dean Lutchen is proud to use proceeds from this fund exclusively to support student programs, clubs and other initiatives that directly impact ENG students, allowing them to become well-rounded Societal Engineers who make a lasting impact on the world. Here are just a few examples of the many ways in which your support has made a difference:

Professional Groups “The BU student section of ASME allows students to think outside the box through a combination of professional events and design competitions. The EAF gave ASME the opportunity to attend national and local conferences, sponsor mechanical engineering contests, and provide support for seniors taking the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam in the spring.”—Neha Dave (ME’11) Summer Research Experience “The SURF program enabled me to pursue my research interests in a carbon-based material called graphene, with the goal of developing a graphene-based nanoscale pressure sensor for oil extraction and carbon sequestration. This incredible opportunity—provided by funds from the EAF—has allowed me to dive deeper into my research field, enriching my university experience and adding a long-term, unique project to feature on my résumé.”—Samir Ahmed (CE’13)

Neha Dave (ME’11)

Samir Ahmed (CE’13)

Putting Knowledge to Use “Thanks to the ENG Annual Fund, I have had the incredible opportunity to work on cancer research in my mentor’s lab. Through the generosity of alumni and friends, I have been given an invaluable gift: experiences that will make me stand out in the workforce among other engineers.”—Chris Reyes (BME’11) Chris Reyes (BME’11)

Helping Students Serve “Traveling and working in Peru and Zambia with Engineers Without Borders gave me a purpose and sparked my interest in sustainable engineering for the developing world. I am very grateful to the alumni who support the EAF for changing my outlook on my life and my future.”—Elissa Mueller (ME’12) Elissa Mueller (ME’12)

To continue enhancing undergraduates’ educational experiences, support the Engineering Annual Fund. Visit www.bu.edu/eng/alumni to make your gift today and join the ENG Alumni Facebook Group.

E n g i n ee r fall 2 011 www.bu.edu/eng

NONPROFIT U.S. POSTAGE PAID BOSTON MA PERMIT NO. 1839

J. Gregory McDaniel PhD, Georgia Institute of Technology Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering Recipient of the 2010 Metcalf Cup and Prize, BU’s highest teaching honor I don’t think I’ve ever met a research problem I did not like. I search for inspiration in nature. For example, my work with biologists has inspired me to develop an entirely new class of acoustic and vibration sensors with profound consequences for national defense. My work on ocean wave energy is addressing one the nation’s most critical needs—independence from fossil-based fuels by sustainable energy alternatives. Boston University is a wonderful environment for someone with my research portfolio. As the engineering representative to a University committee, I helped remove barriers within the University and created a culture in which students are exploring connections across disciplines. I find that students who work with me on research are more motivated and productive when the research is interdisciplinary.

To learn more, visit www.bu.edu/eng. To learn more, visit www.bu.edu /eng. 4

BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING Photo by Vernon Doucette