2016 Swanson School of Engineering Annual Report

U N I V E R S I TY O F P I TT S B U R G H | S WA N S O N S C H O O L O F E N G I N E E R I N G

ANNUALREPORT 2016

DESIGNEXPO 2016

SWANSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING | ANNUAL REPORT

Contents Greetings from the Dean...................................................... 3 PITT@EIC.............................................................................. 5

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Paul Kovach Director of Marketing and Communications

Bioengineering...................................................................... 7 Chemical and Petroleum Engineering..................................11

MANAGING EDITOR

Civil and Environmental Engineering.................................. 15

Carey Anne Zucca Senior Executive Director of Development and Alumni Affairs

Electrical and Computer Engineering................................. 19

DESIGN

Industrial Engineering......................................................... 23

Leslie Karon-Oswalt Senior Graphic Designer

Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science................. 27

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Diversity Programs............................................................. 31

Matthew Cichowicz Communications Writer

Development and Alumni Affairs........................................ 33

PHOTOGRAPHY

Distinguished Alumni Awards............................................. 35

John Altdorfer Ric Evans

Faculty and Student Awards............................................... 37 Statistics............................................................................. 39

ENGINEERING.PITT.EDU FACEBOOK.COM/PITTENGINEERING TWITTER.COM/PITTENGINEERING YOUTUBE.COM/PITTENGINEERING

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Back cover – pictured from left to right are Chancellor Patrick Gallagher, students – Jahari Mercer (IE), Josh Wright (ECE), and Malik Roberts (CEE), and John Swanson, PhD ’66

The information printed in this document was accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of printing and is subject to change at any time at the University’s sole discretion.

The University of Pittsburgh is an affirmative action, equal opportunity institution. 06/2017

BUILDINGCELEBRATION 2016

GREETINGS FROM THE DEAN

3 SWANSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING ANNUAL REPORT

Dear Friends, I am happy to share with you our 2016 Annual Report. This past year was another outstanding period for student success, faculty research, regional impact and global outreach, and I hope you enjoy this look at some of our best stories from the year.

In particular you’ll read about our most precious asset – our incredible students who are making an impact in the classroom, the research lab and the community at large. Over the past few years we have endeavored to further integrate innovation and entrepreneurship in the curriculum, and a growing number of our students have embraced it – some with award-winning results. The academic caliber of our students too continues to shine, as each year we break previous records for SAT scores and class rankings, as well as participation in programs such as study abroad and co-op.

Of course, our student success can only be possible through the dedication of our faculty, who increasingly embrace an interdisciplinary approach to their teaching and their research. You’ll read about some of them as well, and get a glimpse at the spectrum of awards they’ve received this past year.

In this report we also honor our outstanding alumni for 2016, and profile our overall Distinguished Alumnus, Les Synder. We should take exceptional pride in Les and his 2016 cohort of distinguished alumni, who are representative of the results of a Pitt Engineering education.

Lastly, in 2016 we marked a milestone – the end of nearly eight years and $153 million of renovations and construction to Benedum Hall. Our home since 1971, its conversion into a center for 21st century education, research and innovation could not have happened without the generous support of alumni, benefactors and friends. Thanks to leading gifts from John Swanson, PhD ’66 and Jack Mascaro BSCE ’66 MSCE ’80, or individual contributions from our youngest alumni, this transformation of Benedum Hall would not have been possible.

I’m looking forward to the start of another exciting academic year, and once again I thank you for your continued support. Please visit engineering.pitt.edu often to follow the latest news and research from the Swanson School of Engineering, or visit soon to experience our transformation in person.

Sincerely,

Gerald D. Holder U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering Distinguished Service Professor

PITT@EIC PITT AND SWANSON SCHOOL

LAUNCH ENERGY GRID INSTITUTE The U.S. power and energy infrastructure is at a crossroads. Aging, legacy-based systems face demands to integrate the growth of distributed and renewable energy resources, with sources ranging from the average consumer with a solar rooftop to commercial industry developing on-site microgrids.

5 SWANSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING ANNUAL REPORT

This rapidly evolving environment affects grid technologies, systems, designs, operations and regulation, and influences markets and policy.

To address these challenges, the University of Pittsburgh is launching the Energy Grid Research and Infrastructure Development (GRID) Institute. This new entity, grounded in research from Pitt’s Center for Energy, will leverage the University’s public and private partnerships with new laboratory space at the Energy Innovation Center in downtown Pittsburgh to create a comprehensive international solution center for industry.

The Institute’s inaugural partners include Duquesne Light, Eaton, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Dominion Virginia Power, FirstEnergy, Emerson, PITTOHIO Express, Sargent Electric Company, Siemens, and Universal Electric Corp. Nonprofits including the Henry L. Hillman Foundation and the Richard King Mellon Foundation are also supporting the work of GRID. The Institute is coordinating closely with the City of Pittsburgh and with the National Energy Technology Laboratory on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy on joint efforts to advance new energy technologies through an agreement aimed at designing a 21st century energy infrastructure for Pittsburgh. The Institute’s leadership team is also exploring additional public-private partnerships in the Pittsburgh region and throughout the U.S. “Considering the expansive and somewhat daunting goal – to modernize the nation’s electric power grid and energy infrastructure – it’s vital that research institutions such as Pitt partner with the utility industry and the community to find solutions addressing security, resiliency, and reliability,” Pitt Chancellor Patrick D. Gallagher said. “The Energy GRID Institute will serve as the nexus for collaborative research that encourages economic growth and job creation, and enhances our incubator, start-up, and commercialization potential.”

Groundwork for the Institute was developed under the leadership of Gregory Reed, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Director of the Center for Energy, and Rebecca Bagley, Vice Chancellor for Economic Partnerships.

GRID’s operations will be based in new research and incubator space currently under construction by Pitt at the Energy Innovation Center (EIC), a project developed by Pittsburgh Gateways Corporation in the former Connelly Trade School. The 18,600-square-foot laboratory will include the Electric Power Technologies Laboratory, led

by Reed; the Next Generation Energy Conversion and Storage Technologies Laboratory, headed by Prashant Kumta, professor of bioengineering, mechanical engineering and materials science, and chemical and petroleum engineering; the High-Temperature Corrosion Testing Laboratory, led by Brian Gleeson, professor and chair of mechanical engineering and materials science; and the Pitt Energy Incubator Laboratories, developed

by Mark S. Redfern, vice provost for research.

In collaboration with these researchers, the GRID Institute will address the utility sector’s critical issues, including: • Micro grids and resilient energy systems • Renewable technology integration (solar, wind, micro-hydroelectric, etc.)

• Energy storage and power electronics technologies • Electric vehicle-to-grid concepts • Direct current (DC) infrastructure, technologies, and standards • Hybrid AC/DC systems • Integrated Energy Networks “The University’s leading research in energy and sustainability and state-of-the-art laboratory space at the Energy Innovation Center enables GRID to evaluate, assess, and develop solutions collaboratively with our partners on major issues and technologies that impact not only our nation’s power grid, but also energy transmission and distribution infrastructure around the globe,” said Dr. Reed.

Collaborative partnerships are a key element of the enterprise, Ms. Bagley said. “We’re developing a worldclass enterprise for energy and power grid research, development, demonstration, and deployment in collaboration with energy-based industry and utilities” she said. “We appreciate the contributions of our existing partner entities and are actively seeking to add to the group in order to enrich the exchange of ideas and reach universally beneficial outcomes more quickly.”

Developing a Better Methodology to Treat Rotator Cuff Tears

Xrays images of the shoulder from the dynamic stereoradiography system (DSX) while a subject elevates their affected arm in the coronal plane. Left image: pre-exercise therapy; Right image: post-exercise therapy. (Credit: Biodynamics Laboratory, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Pittsburgh.)

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DEPARTMENT OF BIOENGINEERING

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Bioengineering and Health Sciences Researchers Receive NIH Grant Rotator cuff tears are one of the most common injuries seen by orthopedic surgeons, resulting in 30 percent of all visits to orthopaedic surgeons and over 150,000 surgical procedures per year in the United States. The preferred initial treatment is six to twelve weeks of physical therapy (PT), but 25-50 percent of those cases still require surgery. Researchers at Pitt received a $2.79 million award from the National Institute of Health to develop diagnostic methods to allow surgeons to determine whether PT or surgery is the most effective initial treatment.

Principal investigator of the five-year study, “Predicting the Outcome of Exercise Therapy for Treatment of Rotator Cuff Tears,” is Richard E. Debski, associate professor of bioengineering and co-director of the Orthopaedic Robotics Laboratory at Pitt. Co-Principal investigators are James J. Irrgang, professor and chair of the Department of Physical Therapy in Pitt’s School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and vice chair of clinical outcomes research in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery; and Scott Tashman, professor of orthopaedic surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

“Rotator cuff injuries are one of the most common injuries for people aged 40-70, and can be caused by an accident but often occur simply from wear and tear as we age,” Dr. Debski explained. “Over the age of 50, chances increase that 40-50 percent of people have a tear and many don’t know it. Although physical therapy is the first preferred treatment, most patients still require surgery, which prolongs recovery time and increases costs. Our goal is to utilize new methods to perform a biomechanical analysis to determine whether a patient is more suited for PT or surgery, and thereby improve overall recovery.”

Over the first two years, Dr. Debski and his group plan to enroll 100 patients with isolated full thickness tears of the supraspinatus tendon – the most basic tear. The biomechanics analysis will measure shoulder motion and tear size before and after physical therapy. He noted the technology that they will use, a bi-planar x-ray system that Dr. Tashman developed, is unique in such a study. The x-ray images provide quantitative measurements of shoulder motion during activities of daily living and are representative of rotator cuff function. The group will also track the tear size longitudinally out to one year, a first for such a study. Their long-term goal is to perform a clinical trial to determine whether the predictions make a difference in treatment outcomes.

“Determining the characteristics of treatment versus surgery will be critical, but for the first time we’ll be gathering comprehensive, quantitative data to make these predictions,” he said. “The genesis of this study began in 2011 with Dr. Volker Musahl, medical director of the UPMC Rooney Center for Sports Medicine and orthopaedic surgeon for Pitt’s football team. Our rotator cuff research has now grown to include bioengineering, radiology, physical therapy and orthopaedic surgery, which is a tremendous interdisciplinary effort to attack this problem.”

rotator cuff tears

rotator cuff injuries are one of the most common in people aged

40-70

result in

30%

of all visits to orthopaedic surgeons

TURNING LEAD TO GOLD Pitt Students Win Gold Medal for Designing a Synthetic Biology System to Detect Lead in Contaminated Water The International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Foundation hosts an annual competition for students to gain experience in the field of synthetic biology. Student teams spend 12 weeks during the summer building genetically engineered systems that aim to have an impact on their communities and the world. Their efforts continue into the fall semester until the Giant Jamboree in Boston, a meeting of more than 3,000 attendees and 299 teams from all over the world where students present their projects and celebrate months of hard work.

The EPA sets the maximum lead contamination level at 15 ppb; reports have shown actual lead levels in contaminated water to be much higher

This year, the Pitt iGEM team captured a gold medal for the first time.

The team’s project – “Hot Metal Switch” – focused on developing a cell-free sensor that uses bacterial cell extract and a DNA genetic circuit to detect high levels of lead in water. Forty-seven teams competed in the environmental category, and the Pitt team was one of six to be nominated for the Best Environmental Project because of their project’s potential application to provide an inexpensive way to test lead toxicity of drinking water in people’s homes.

“After three years of participating in the iGEM competition, we are very proud that our students were able to bring home the University’s first gold medal,” said Alex Deiters, professor in the Department of Chemistry and a faculty advisor for the team. “The students gained valuable research experience, learned project management skills, impacted our community and cultivated an impressive multidisciplinary skill set in addition to netting the prestige that comes with the award.”

This year’s team consisted of five students: Claire Chu, a junior studying chemistry and psychology with a minor in Chinese; Maya Lemmon-Kishi, a junior bioengineering student; Aife Ni Chochlain, a junior majoring in molecular

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DEPARTMENT OF BIOENGINEERING

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biology and history; Praneeth Peddada, a senior bioengineering student; and Maddie Perdoncin, a junior majoring in biology and minoring in chemistry.

Their project was based on a system design originally developed at the Collins Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that uses DNA circuits and cell extract to detect specific RNA molecules. The Pitt students adapted the system to sense lead instead of RNAs by incorporating catalytically active DNA molecules, also known as DNAzymes, that are designed to self-cleave upon lead binding. For their sensor output they used the enzyme beta-galactoctosidase, which activates a colorimetric substrate so that contaminated water samples turn bright purple, producing clear and easy to understand results. While testing Hot Metal Switch, the team was able to detect a lead concentration of about 414 parts per billion (ppb) in water samples.

“The Environmental Protection Agency sets the maximum lead contamination level at 15 ppb; however, reports have shown actual lead levels in contaminated water to be much higher,” explains Chu. “We will continue testing Hot Metal Switch at lower levels, but our experiments up to this point show that we could have detected the lead in Flint, Michigan, for example, since the levels there were extremely high, measuring more than 13,000 ppb.”

The iGEM judgment criteria requires the teams to do more than run successful tests. Students must address ethics, sustainability, social justice, safety, security and intellectual property rights issues surrounding the project. The highest performing teams also include social or community outreach efforts.

While working on Hot Metal Switch, Pitt iGEM team members collaborated with Pittsburgh Public Schools and created a video to warn students about the dangers of lead poisoning. They developed a mathematical model to help authorities predict the blood-lead levels of children based on their amount of exposure to lead. The team also attended events such as the Carnegie Science Center’s H2Oh! Exhibit and Pitt’s Camp BioE to introduce more students to synthetic biology and its applications to solving environmental problems.

“Taking part in iGEM is a really unique research experience for the students,” said Jason Lohmueller, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Immunology and iGEM coordinator. “They are creatively engaged in designing their project and can incorporate things like government policy, web design and entrepreneurship. The competition requires a variety of talents and talented people to succeed. I would encourage all interested students to apply because it really is an excellent undergraduate opportunity even if you don’t yet know anything about synthetic biology.”

Other advisors to the iGEM team included Lisa Antoszewski, assistant professor of biology at Grove City College; Natasa Miskov-Zivanov, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, bioengineering and computational and systems biology at Pitt; Cheryl Telmer, senior molecular biologist at Carnegie Mellon University; Adam Butchy, Pitt graduate student studying cellular systems modeling; and Sanjeev Shroff, Distinguished Professor of and Gerald E. McGinnis Chair in Bioengineering and professor of medicine at Pitt.

Pictured from left to right are Jason Lohmueller, Praneeth Peddada, Maddie Perdoncin, Claire Chu and Maya Lemmon-Kishi at the iGEM Giant Jamboree in Boston.

“Sniffing Out” a Better Treatment of Lung Disease Research Team Awarded $1.7 Million NIH Grant Cystic Fibrosis (CF) causes the accumulation of dehydrated mucus in the lungs which can lead to chronic infection, inflammation and respiratory failure and drastically affect the lives of CF patients. These ever-changing complexities often make it difficult for doctors to decide which therapies will be most effective in treating the disease.

To develop better evaluation methods, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded a research team at the schools of Engineering and Medicine a highly competitive $1.7 million U01 grant to develop new mathematical models of liquid and ion transport in the human lung. These models could allow doctors to rapidly personalize interventions for patients suffering from CF and other lung diseases and administer the most effective treatment by simply studying a cell culture from the patient’s nose.

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Robert Parker, professor of chemical and petroleum engineering, and Timothy Corcoran, associate professor of medicine, bioengineering and chemical engineering at the School of Medicine, in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care, will lead the study as co-principal investigators. Three co-investigators will join the study: Carol Bertrand from Pediatrics, and Joseph Pilewski and Michael Myerburg, both from the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine.

“We know that mucus hydration and clearance are important factors in CF lung disease,” said Dr. Corcoran.

“We’ve developed nuclear imaging techniques to measure how mucus and water move in the lungs.

This lets us understand the individual lung pathologies of our patients and may allow us to predict what therapies will help them. The techniques we are using were actually developed here, and we’re pretty much the only ones using them.”

The researchers will begin by collecting data from patients with CF, biological parents of patients with CF who carry the CF mutation and healthy controls. After sampling and culturing of human nasal epithelial (HNE) cells – under the direction of Dr. Myerburg – Dr. Corcoran will use aerosol-based nuclear imaging to measure mucus clearance and airway surface liquid dehydration in the lungs.

Once the researchers have collected data from the patients’ HNE cell cultures and lung imagining, they will use advanced computational techniques to find the correlation between the nasal cell physiology and lung physiology. Dr. Parker will lead the group’s effort to translate the data collected from the test subjects into multi-scale mathematical models that provide cell- and organ-level visualizations of the patients’ physiology.

“The mathematical models – through a framework of differential equations – describe how basic physiological processes contribute to experimental outcomes,” Dr. Parker said. “We can link all of the information we’ve gathered from lab experiments, physiology studies and clinical studies to better predict how a patient will respond to different therapies. By creating millions of simulations over a broad spectrum of patients, we can identify the underlying biological mechanism and understand how the patients will respond to treatment through the painless, non-invasive sampling of the HNE cells.”

Ultimately, the researchers hope to show that nasal cell sampling and interpretation of the data by the computer models can lead to a highly personalized approach to treating a patient with CF that could begin as early as birth. This would greatly enhance a patient’s quality of life, increase life expectancy and limit progress of the disease.

“We are always going to be limited by the number of patients we can test,” added Dr. Parker. “However, we can bridge the gap between the full set of all CF patients and a smaller set of CF patients with similar symptoms who are likely to respond to treatment in a similar way. The mathematical models will help us create those sets and let us predict outcomes and design treatments for individual patients.”

Nuclear imaging shows mucus clearance from the lungs. These imaging techniques can be used along with systems models to help develop treatments for Cystic Fibrosis.

Materials that Compute The potential to develop “materials that compute” has taken another leap at the Swanson School of Engineering, where researchers for the first time have demonstrated that the material can be designed to recognize simple patterns. This responsive, hybrid material, powered by its own chemical reactions, could one day be integrated into clothing and used to monitor the human body, or developed as a skin for “squishy” robots.

“Pattern recognition for materials that compute,” published in the AAAS journal Science Advances (DOI: 0.1126/sciadv.1601114), continues the research of Anna C. Balazs, Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, and Steven P. Levitan, the John A. Jurenko Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Co-investigators are Yan Fang, lead author and graduate student researcher in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; and Victor V. Yashin, Research Assistant Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering.

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The computations were modeled utilizing Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) gels, a substance that oscillates in the absence of external stimuli, with an overlaying piezoelectric (PZ) cantilever. These so-called BZ-PZ units combine Dr. Balazs’ research in BZ gels and Dr. Levitan’s expertise in computational modeling and oscillator-based computing systems.

“BZ-PZ computations are not digital, like most people are familiar with, and so to recognize something like a blurred pattern within an image requires nonconventional computing,” Dr. Balazs explained. “For the first time, we have been able to show how these materials would perform the computations for pattern recognition.”

Dr. Levitan and Mr. Fang first stored a pattern of numbers as a set of polarities in the BZ-PZ units, and the input patterns are coded through the initial phase of the oscillations imposed on these units. The computational modeling revealed that the input pattern closest to the stored pattern exhibits the fastest convergence time to the stable synchronization behavior, and is the most effective at recognizing patterns.

In this study, the materials were programmed to recognize black-and-white pixels in the shape of numbers that had been distorted.

Compared to a traditional computer, these computations are slow and take minutes. However, Dr. Yashin notes that the results are similar to nature, which moves at a “snail’s pace.”

“Individual events are slow because the period of the BZ oscillations is slow,” Dr. Yashin said. “However, there are some tasks that need a longer analysis, and are more natural in function. That’s why this type of system is perfect to monitor environments like the human body.”

For example, Dr. Yashin said that patients recovering from a hand injury could wear a glove that monitors movement, and can inform doctors whether the hand is healing properly or if the patient has improved mobility. Another use would be to monitor individuals at risk for early onset Alzheimer’s, by wearing footwear that would analyze gait and compare results against normal movements, or a garment that monitors cardiovascular activity for people at risk of heart disease or stroke.

Since the devices convert chemical reactions to electrical energy, there would be no need for external electrical power. This would also be ideal for a robot or other device that could utilize the material as a sensory skin.

“Our next goal is to expand from analyzing black-and-white pixels to grayscale and more complicated images and shapes, as well as to enhance the devices storage capability,” Mr. Fang said. “This was an exciting step for us and reveals that the concept of “materials that compute” is viable.”

The research is funded by a five-year National Science Foundation Integrated NSF Support Promoting Interdisciplinary Research and Education (INSPIRE) grant, which focuses on complex and pressing scientific problems that lie at the intersection of traditional disciplines.

“As computing performance technology is approaching the end of Moore’s law growth, the demands and nature of computing are themselves evolving,” noted Sankar Basu, NSF program director. “This work at the University of Pittsburgh, supported by the NSF, is an example of this groundbreaking shift away from traditional silicon CMOS-based digital computing to a non-von Neumann machine in a polymer substrate, with remarkable low power consumption. The project is a rare example of much needed interdisciplinary collaboration between material scientists and computer architects.”

Conceptual illustration of pattern recognition process performed by hybrid gel oscillator system.

(Credit: Yan Fang)

got bees?

DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

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NSF Awards Vikas Khanna with Grant to Study Decline of Pollinating Insects The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Vikas Khanna, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, with a $259,582 grant to investigate the impact of declining insect-mediated pollination on the United States economy.

Previous studies on insects that carry pollen from flower to flower generally focus on agricultural yields. “Collaborative Research: Quantifying the Critical Importance of Insectmediated Pollination Service for the U.S. Economy” will expand the research to the impact of these insects on associated industrial sectors.

“Economic sectors that are directly impacted by insectmediated pollination are the agricultural sectors, for example: fruit, tree nut, vegetable and melon farming,” said Dr. Khanna.

“However, there are other sectors that are indirectly dependent on insect-mediated pollination. These include sectors that provide raw materials and inputs to agricultural sectors such as fertilizer manufacturing, pesticides and agricultural chemical manufacturing and even power generation.”

Christina Grozinger, distinguished professor of entomology and director of the Center for Pollinator Research at Penn State University, will join Dr. Khanna on the study. Dr. Grozinger will lend her expertise in pollinator biology and health to complement Dr. Khanna’s understanding of sustainability science and engineering. Penn State will receive an additional $80,000 from NSF. Prior to receiving the grant from NSF, Dr. Khanna published a paper describing some preliminary results on this topic in the December issue of Environmental Science and Technology. The paper was selected as the First Runner Up for the Best Papers of 2015.

The researchers anticipate this study to lead to a greater appreciation of the role of surrounding ecosystems on the development of economic products and services, with an emphasis on the need to conserve pollination species, including honey bees and other wild insects.

“Understanding the economic value of pollination services attributable to managed honeybees and wild insects will help highlight the critical importance and dependence of the U.S. economy on pollinators and the role played by pollinators in sustaining human and industrial activity. Additionally, estimating economic value of insect pollination is likely to help set a higher priority for conservation,” said Dr. Khanna.

The three-year grant continues through June 30, 2019.

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DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

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P IT T L AU N C H E S N E W

Environmental Engineering Major As the demand for energy grows and the human impact on natural resources like fresh water becomes more profound, public and private entities are relying on environmental engineers to address current and future challenges facing our society. In order for its students to capitalize on this changing job market, the Swanson School’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering launched a new environmental engineering major for the 2016-2017 academic year.

“U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed that there’s going to be a great demand for environmental engineers, and many of our alumni and employment partners have indicated this to us as well,” noted Leonard Casson, associate professor and academic coordinator of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “Civil engineers in particular need to adapt quickly to evolving societal needs, and our Department realized that we were poised to create a specific major to give our students an advantage.”

According to BLS data, “employment of environmental engineers is projected to grow 12 percent from 2014 to 2024, faster than the average for all occupations.” California, Pennsylvania, New York, Florida and Texas currently lead the U.S. in the highest employment level of environmental engineers.

Casson added that there are currently 67 ABET accredited environmental engineering programs in the United States. Locally, he continued, environmental engineers – who use the principles of engineering, biology, and chemistry to develop solutions to environmental problems – will likely have job opportunities in many professional areas including water and wastewater treatment, site remediation, solid and hazardous waste management, energy, green building design and construction, and mining.

“Developing this program was possible thanks to the depth and breadth of our faculty, many of whom are nationally and internally recognized for their research in water and wastewater management, sustainability and green design and unconventional resources such as Marcellus and Utica shale,” Dr. Casson said. “Additionally, we have found that women and minorities with a passion for the environment are greatly interested in this program, and so we anticipate it to be an advantage when recruiting future undergraduate students.”

The Department has approximately 300 undergraduate students (sophomore, junior and senior) and 150 graduate students (MS, PMS and PhD). It is also one of Pitt’s oldest academic programs, established in 1867 as a direct result of the impact of the civil engineering field during the Civil War.

300

undergraduates

employment of environmental engineers is projected to grow

12% from 2014 to 2024

(sophomore, junior, and senior)

civil and environmental engineering is one of Pitt’s oldest academic programs established in

1867

150

graduate students (MS, PMS and PhD)

enrolled in the Department

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA’S

Alan George Named Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering

The International Space Station is now home to two experimental CHREC space processors (CSPs) developed by Dr. George and his team at CHREC. The CSPs are the basis for a variety of studies in resilient, parallel, and reconfigurable computing in orbit.

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Last summer, the Swanson School of Engineering introduced Alan D. George, PhD as Professor and Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, effective January 1, 2017. Previously Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida College of Engineering, Dr. George also received the Ruth and Howard Mickle Endowed Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Swanson School.

Dr. George succeeds Mahmoud el-Nokali, PhD, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, who has served as interim department chair since June 2015.

“Our ECE department is poised for tremendous growth in both enrollment and research, and Alan is an accomplished scholar who has the energy, leadership and vision to take our ECE Department to the next level,” noted Gerald D. Holder, U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering. “I want to thank Mahmoud and our interdisciplinary search committee for their support during the search.”

“I am excited and looking forward to the unique opportunities in the ECE Department in the Swanson School at the University of Pittsburgh, and I will be honored to serve as Department Chair and as Ruth and Howard Mickle Endowed Chair,” Dr. George said.

Dr. George joined the faculty at the University of Florida (UF) in 1997 and serves as full professor with tenure in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). Under the auspices of the National Science Foundation (NSF), he founded and leads one of the most successful research centers at NSF or UF, the NSF Center for High-performance Reconfigurable Computing (CHREC, pronounced “shreck”), which features more than 30 industry, agency, and academic partners. In ECE at UF, Dr. George built and led graduate and research programs in computer engineering, growing them from virtually nil to become the match of electrical engineering in every respect. He also led the university committee that created the first supercomputer center in UF history, which is a major campus facility that has grown to become one of the foremost at any U.S. university. Before transferring to UF, he served on the faculty in the joint college of engineering at Florida State University and Florida A&M University.

Dr. George is a Fellow of the IEEE for contributions in reconfigurable and high-performance computing. His research is in high-performance architectures, networks, systems, services, and apps for reconfigurable, parallel, distributed, and dependable computing. He works with many graduate and undergraduate students, and their experimental research often leads to new technologies. Two recent examples are the world’s foremost reconfigurable supercomputer (called Novo-G), and a hybrid and reconfigurable space computer (called CHREC Space Processor or CSP) featured on 14 spacecraft slated for launch into Earth orbit in 2016-17.

Dr. George earned the B.S. in computer science (CS) and M.S. in ECE from the University of Central Florida, and the PhD in CS from the Florida State University. Throughout his academic career, he has been honored with a variety of awards, including university teacher of the year, university service award, university productivity award, college doctoral advisor of the year, college faculty mentor of the year, and just recently the college teacher and scholar of the year. Prior to his academic career, he worked as computer engineer for General Electric in Daytona Beach, and as senior computer engineer and group leader for Lockheed Martin (formerly Martin Marietta) in Orlando.

One of the CHREC Space Processors.

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the

Virtual Education ECE’s Samuel Dickerson introduces students to “The Internet of Things” with a new course designed to develop ideas from concept to completion Despite exponential advancements in computing and internet technology, the majority of digital devices still rely on human-computer interface to gather and use data. The technology community has been buzzing recently about a new landscape in which devices spend more time interacting with the physical and virtual world than actual users. However, people are not entirely removed from the equation – in fact, more than ever before they will be able to reap the benefits of all this data.

Samuel Dickerson, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, designed the course “Introduction to Cyber-Physical Systems” to teach students about the emerging field of cyber-physical systems – or what is more commonly referred to as “The Internet of Things” or simply “IoT.” “The Internet of Things is projected to be the next industrial revolution,” said Dr. Dickerson. “It’s a new area in itself. Not many universities have an entire course dedicated to it, but we’re going to take a topto-bottom approach. Students will begin with building and attaching sensors to devices, then be challenged to find effective ways to use the data collected and even develop business plans to look at product markets for their creations.”

Many business leaders and publications are projecting the IoT market to be worth more than $1 trillion by 2020. Smart cars, wired homes and wearable devices herald a future in which people have complete connectivity with their devices and the ability to seamlessly share data on demand. However, much of the technology required to make this possibility a reality has not been invented yet.

projections indicate the IoT market could be worth

more than

$1 trillion

by 2020

“Now more than ever we require innovation to keep pace with the speed of our imagination,” said Dr. Dickerson. “Students that complete Introduction to CyberPhysical Systems will have a good understanding of the present and future demands of this new industry as well as a concrete understanding of how to turn engineering knowledge into marketable products.”

After students acquire an understanding of IoT related skills, Dr. Dickerson will introduce the “Lean Launchpad” methodology, which teaches entrepreneurial business and product development by encouraging experimentation and hands-on experience. The students will take their technical projects and look for ways to innovate and prototype IoT devices.

“More than 200 universities have adopted Lean Launchpad since its inception in 2011,” said Dr. Dickerson. “Building off some of the ingenuity in emerging fields, Pitt students are not just going to learn about startups and innovation, they might also leave the class as entrepreneurs.”

“Introduction to Cyber Physical Systems” received funding as one of eight teaching proposals selected by the Office of the Provost’s Advisory Council on Instructional Excellence as part of the 2016 Innovation in Education Awards Program.

more than

200

universities have adopted Lean Launchpad

Paul W. Leu wasn’t exactly a traditional faculty member when he arrived at the Department of Industrial Engineering in 2010. As an undergrad, he studied mechanical engineering at Rice University and received his PhD from Stanford University. His postdoctoral research in electrical engineering at the University of California Berkeley began his cross-discipline approach, but he didn’t stop there.

Today, Dr. Leu has begun to receive recognition for the innovation and creativity of applying new techniques to reoccurring problems in engineering. He’s looking for flexible metal structures that can be used for solar cells, transparent conductors, smart clothing or smart paper and a range of other applications rigid and brittle metals can’t do. To find them, he utilizes new statistical methods similar to the algorithms used by Amazon or Netflix.

flexible thinking

“The trial and error process is very tedious and repetitive, and at best, we get a very limited body of some very small region of the parameter space. The idea here is to be able to look at a much larger and wider body of structures using statistical methods. There are services available that can determine what movies you might like to watch or what you might want to purchase. We are taking a similar approach with various design parameters to determine potential configurations based on the designer’s or researcher’s intuition,” said Dr. Leu. A recent grant by the National Science Foundation (NSF) will help fund Dr. Leu’s research into “soft materials” that are flexible, lightweight and easy to install. The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award is the NSF’s most prestigious award for junior faculty who exemplify outstanding research, teaching and outreach. Dr. Leu will receive $500,000 over five years for support.

“It’s been a long term goal of mine to incorporate more industrial engineering optimization techniques or statistical methods – things you might see more in operations research – into materials design and manufacturing,” said Dr. Leu. “The CAREER award for junior faculty is recognition of some of the work you’ve already done, but it’s also to put you on the track to do high-impact research and become a leader in your field.”

The CAREER award focuses on three parameters: research, teaching and outreach. Funding from the grant will help create a new graduate course based on Dr. Leu’s research and the statistical design of materials. Dr. Leu currently teaches undergraduate courses in Engineering Product Design, Fundamentals of Micro and Nano Manufacturing and Introduction to Solar Cells and Nanotechnology.

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23 SWANSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING ANNUAL REPORT

“What I liked a lot about Dr. Leu was how thorough he was while remaining in tune with the class. It was easily one of my favorite classes, and I think that was in a large part because of Dr. Leu’s teaching style,” said Joseph Marchi, a senior Industrial Engineering major.

Marchi took IE-1051 Engineering Product Design in fall 2015. Shortly after, he founded a stand-up comedy club at Pitt and sought out Dr. Leu to be the faculty advisor.

“I knew he was very busy,” said Marchi, “but Dr. Leu is always willing to help students, and he encouraged fun and creativity in his class. Right after he agreed to advise us, he read up on all the handbooks and resources for faculty advisors to student clubs even though I knew he was going to do a great job.”

To help Dr. Leu continue making an impact on students and the community, the CAREER grant will also assist with funding for an innovative new way of interacting with his research. The Laboratory for Advanced Materials (LAMP) is located in the subbasement of Benedum Hall, but visitors can take a virtual tour from anywhere, anytime by visiting lamp.pitt.edu. Modeled in a similar manner as Google’s Street View, visitors to the website can tour the laboratory and get a quick and highly visual idea of the equipment and layout of the lab.

“A lot of people, including high school students thinking about studying engineering, have never seen the inside of a lab before. Now they can. We are hoping to use some of the resources provided by the grant to map the Nanoscale Fabrication and Characterization Facility (NFCF) across the hall in a similar fashion and include ways to interact with the equipment digitally so visitors can get even more information,” said Dr. Leu.

Outreach to Young Engineers Dr. Leu’s outreach efforts aren’t limited to online. He regularly works with the Pitt Engineering Office of Diversity and has taken on a major role supervising INVESTING NOW engineering workshops for high school students every summer. Dr. Leu and his research group have managed five-week INVESTING NOW workshops that have reached more than 200 high school juniors and seniors since 2011. The program focuses on students from groups that are historically underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics majors and careers.

“INVESTING NOW is so appreciative of faculty and staff who step in to work with our high school students,” said Linda Demoise, academic support

coordinator for INVESTING NOW. “Since Dr. Leu first came to Pitt, he has been there supporting us and has continued throughout the years. Dr. Leu values the outreach program and loves challenging the high school students to study and develop competencies they’ll need for any 21st century profession. We’re so lucky to have such help.”

All of Dr. Leu’s work, over the past year in particular, helped him to win the 2016 UPS Award for Minority Advancement in Industrial Engineering. The award, issued by the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE), recognizes individuals who have developed programs or projects directed to the advancement of women, minorities or the disabled in the field of industrial engineering. The IISE is the world’s largest professional society dedicated to industrial and systems engineers.

Additional support for Dr. Leu and his team’s outreach efforts beyond the NSF funding will be provided by a combination of the Office of Diversity, the Pittsburgh Quantum Institute (PQI) at Pitt, the Pitt Mobile Science Lab, and the Penn State Leonhard Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Education.

“Pitt has good resources for supporting researchers inside and outside of the lab, and there are a lot of smart and active researchers that are really working together here. So much research now is interdisciplinary, so it really requires teamwork to take on these bigger, more challenging problems. I’ve been involved with researchers at NFCF, MCSI, Pitt’s Center for Energy, PQI and UPMC, so I would say it’s been a good environment for collaboration,” said Dr. Leu. Still, Dr. Leu hasn’t lost sight of his research goals and what they could mean for society. Flexible metals have the potential to be lightweight, portable and cheap – all of which would be necessary to provide something like solar cells to areas that are underserved with respect to power supply. The struggle is not only to have power in remote locations, but the ability to provide convenient power.

“Studies show that one in five people throughout the world don’t have access to electricity. That’s shocking to hear when in many parts of the U.S. we take power for granted. People are predicting that solar energy has a huge potential to change power shortages in places like Africa or South Asia. They are already trying to set up microgrids on farms and in small villages, and my research has the potential to make an impact there as well,” said Dr. Leu.

any way you slice it,

PITT DELIVERS! Four Pitt teams made a lasting impression at the 10th Annual Ergonomics Design Competition hosted by Auburn Engineers, Inc. by all finishing in the Top 10 and taking three spots in the top five – becoming the first school to achieve that feat in the ten years of the competition. The top Pitt team finished in second place overall, for the second time in two years – this time, thanks to pizza.

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DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING

SWANSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING ANNUAL REPORT

“This is just our second year of competing, and I am so pleased with our teams’ successes in this national competition,” said Joel Haight, associate professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering, director of the School’s Safety Engineering program and faculty advisor to the Ergonomics Design Competition teams.

The Ergonomics Design Competition began with a Preliminary Design project that challenged students to identify workplace stressors and design solutions to alleviate them. The project took place over the course of the fall semester and required students to apply ergonomic principles in a given scenario to tool design, complex workstation design, design of manufacturing cells, product handling devices, evaluation of work system and other considerations.

This year the students evaluated and compared the ergonomics of car washing at a commercial car wash, at home by the owner of the vehicle and with an “Uber” type service in which car washers travel to the customers upon request.

Students also had to complete a Final Design project, which was less complex but had strict 48-hour deadline.

The teams analyzed a pizza-making operation and the stressors of each position involved in the process of making pizza. Results from the Preliminary Design project and the Final Design project, along with a series of “Lightning Round” questions related to ergonomics, allowed the judges to select the Top Five teams. The finalists gave live presentations via WebEx to a panel of professional ergonomists across the country to determine the winner.

After thorough evaluation by the judges, one of the two teams from the University of Michigan slipped into first place, edging out the Pitt team, which consisted of the Department of Industrial Engineering’s (IE) Lauren Judge and Emily Zullo; Bioengineering’s (BioE) Mikayla Ferchaw and Andrew Becker; and Electrical and Computer Engineering’s (ECE) Jonathan Kenneson. As the second place finisher, the team will also serve as the alternate for presenting the results of their work at the

Second Place overall team, pictured from left to right are Dr. Haight, Lauren Judge, Mikayla Ferchaw, Emily Zullo, Jonathan Kenneson and Andrew Becker

Human Factors and Ergonomics Conference in Austin, TX in October 2017.

One of the two Pitt teams to finish in the Top Five consisted of:

The other Top Five team consisted of:

Geena Petrone (IE)

Cagla Duzbasan (IE)

McKenzie Kallquist (IE)

Anthony Sciulli (IE)

Kor’an Sharif (IE)

Jacqueline Schauble (BioE)

Riddhi Gandhi (BioE)

Max Jablunovsky (IE)

Piyusha Sane (BioE) The final Pitt team received an honorable mention for an overall Top 10 finish and consisted of: Kristyna Finikiotis (IE)

Sarah Masterson (IE)

Chris Jambor (IE)

Rob McCauley (IE)

Emily Lain (IE) The competition began with a total of 35 teams and ended with 28 completing all of the required tasks.

In addition to the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Michigan, participating universities included Texas A&M University, University of Utah, Auburn University, University of Buffalo and University of Puerto Rico, among others.

Auburn Engineers, Inc., sponsor of the competition, is an international ergonomics consulting company based in Auburn, Alabama.

Wave of the Future Sung Cho Designs Micro Swimming Drone to Traverse the Human Body Using Sound Waves

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AND MATERIALS SCIENCE

27 SWANSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING ANNUAL REPORT

Fifty years after the release of the iconic sci-fi movie “Fantastic Voyage,” researchers are beginning to launch fleets of tiny swimming robots with biomedical applications. These super-small submarines have the potential to navigate the human body less invasively and with more maneuverability than some current surgical and medical procedures. However, since the physicians and surgeons won’t actually be on board the vessels like in the movie, the ability to accurately control the movement of these robots has become the focus of many studies.

Because there isn’t enough room at the micro and nano scale to include motors, actuators or batteries, researchers are exploring methods of directing the robot movement by using electromagnetic fields, interacting with biological and chemical fuels within the body or even harnessing bacteria and hitching a ride. For Sung Kwon Cho, associate professor of mechanical engineering and materials science, the answer seems to be an arrangement of strategically positioned tiny bubbles and an acoustic field.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Dr. Cho with a three-year, $724,691 grant for research into the development of a micro swimming drone that can be located and controlled inside the human body through ultrasound waves. When the sound waves pass through gaseous bubbles implanted into the drone, Dr. Cho and his team can propel it forward and change its direction. By adding a few more bubble-filled tubes, the drone will be able to follow a user-defined, three-dimensional path.

“We have already proven that our design works in two-dimensional space,” said Dr. Cho. “By placing a bubble of air in a cylinder and passing a sound wave through it, the excited air moves in a three-dimensional space. Longer tubes respond to lower frequencies and shorter tubes respond to higher frequencies. Not only can we propel the robot forward, but we can change direction, too. There are many ways to apply this design to three-dimensional space, and the grant will fund our research into optimizing the robot for practical applications.”

Dr. Cho’s method of acoustically exciting micro bubbles within the robot has several advantages over previously proposed designs. Most clinics are already equipped with ultrasound systems, so ultrasounddriven robots could be easily integrated into the existing medical infrastructure. Furthermore, Dr. Cho’s proposed robot is less bulky, cheaper and more compatible with the human body than other designs.

“The proposed drone has many potential medical applications including local treatment of tumors; removal of fatty deposits on blood vessel walls; break or removal of blood clots, kidney stones and liver stones; cleaning of burnt or wounded tissue; attack and removal of parasites; removal of tar in the lungs; and drug delivery,” said Dr. Cho.

The drone will be tested under hydrodynamic conditions similar to living organs, including tests inside fish. The fish have been selected to have transparent tissue, allowing the researchers to observe the drone’s movement unobstructed.

Co-principal investigators Kang Kim, associate professor of medicine and bioengineering and the Heart and Vascular Institute, UPMC; and Nitin Sharma, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science will join Dr. Cho on the study titled “NRI: 3-D Maneuverable Feedback-Controlled Micro Swimming Drone for Biomedical Applications.”

Dr. Cho’s research will receive funding specifically from the NSF National Robotics Initiative, which aims to ‘support the development of the next generation of robotics, to advance the capability and usability of such systems and artifacts and to encourage existing and new communities to focus on innovative application areas.’

Pictured from left to right are UPMC’s Dr. Kang Kim (co-PI), Dr. Cho (PI) and Dr. Nitin Sharma (co-PI).

Manufacturing a

3D Printing Partnership

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29 SWANSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING ANNUAL REPORT

From energy-efficient jet engines to personalized medical devices, companies can quickly and easily design and manufacture cutting-edge, safe and reliable products thanks to a new collaboration between ANSYS and the University of Pittsburgh. The partnership will further education and research to solve some of the industry’s toughest additive manufacturing problems.

Printing metal is particularly challenging because it involves the use of a laser. While the laser optimizes the density of the metal for the particular application, it can also melt the metal in unexpected ways, causing the product to fail. And the rapid heating and cooling causes stresses that can deform the end product. ANSYS and Pitt are working together to simulate those deformations before printing to ensure the product not only has the desired shape, but also performs as expected.

With the partnership, the university has opened a 1,200-square-foot additive manufacturing lab in the Swanson School of Engineering. The ANSYS Additive Manufacturing Research Laboratory is equipped with some of the most advanced additive manufacturing devices that utilize metals, alloys, polymers and other materials to laser print components for nearly every industry.

The partnership will also support faculty and students conducting collaborative research with ANSYS and other industry partners, including those in the biomedical, aerospace and defense industries.

Lab workers will have access to the ANSYS portfolio, enabling them to explore, simulate and analyze solutions for stress and fatigue on critical components that go into products such as airplanes, cars and medical devices.

“Collaboration with industry leaders such as ANSYS provides us with the important insight into real-world challenges that companies face in product development and other areas,” said Mark Redfern, Pitt’s Vice Provost for Research. “These relationships guide our approach to educating our students and conducting research to ensure that the work we do is cutting edge and relevant to society. Our current additive manufacturing research will be greatly enhanced by our strengthened partnership with ANSYS.” ANSYS and Pitt’s collaborative work in this area was initiated with funding from the federal government via America Makes (the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute). Pitt’s research includes the development of new tools to optimize the interior construction of a manufactured part at the microscopic level and thereby improving strength and structural integrity, lowering weight, reducing costs and improving sustainable production methods.

Opposite page – pictured from left to right at the ANSYS AMRL dedication are Associate Professor Albert To; Swanson School Dean Gerald Holder; Jim Cashman, president and CEO of ANSYS; Mark Redfern, Vice Provost for Research; and Georgette Nelson, Leader, Additive Programs at General Electric.

If this heat exchanger was manufactured by conventional methods it would comprise an assembly of over 100 individually manufactured components. By making some minor additive manufacturing design changes and utilizing the EOS M290 direct metal laser sintering machine, the heat exchanger assembly was additive manufactured as a single component.

PITT STRIVE Finds Its Stride

One year after the National Science Foundation awarded the Swanson School of Engineering $1.6 million to encourage underrepresented minorities to pursue and excel in doctoral engineering programs, the Office of Diversity has successfully recruited seven scholars and fostered the active participation of underrepresented graduate student fellows. Students in the program benefit from financial support as well as professional development activities, training sessions and student-focused workshops.

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OFFICE OF DIVERSITY

SWANSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING ANNUAL REPORT

Funding for the program comes from the NSF Alliances for Graduate Education and Professoriate (AGEP) Program and is a Knowledge Adoption and Translation (KAT) award.

The AGEP-KAT program at Pitt is managed by the Office of Diversity and was rebranded PITT STRIVE with a reference to the program’s emphasis on Success, Transition, Representation, Innovation, Vision and Education.

The PITT STRIVE Retreat in August 2016 punctuated a successful first year by bringing together students and faculty mentors at Oglebay Resort in West Virginia.

The retreat not only benefited students, but also gave faculty members the opportunity to learn and practice the best strategies for successfully mentoring students.

Sixteen PhD students, 14 faculty members and two staff members attended the event.

The two-day retreat began with a performance of Hands Up by Caleen Jennings, Professor of Theatre at American University. Her one-woman performance, backed by music from cellist Jodi Beder of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, is a poetic exploration of the struggles of African Americans from the past to today.

Dr. Timothy Eatman, associate professor of higher education at Syracuse University, also guided participants through a session discussing positive and negative experiences with mentorship. Dr. Eatman is currently engaged in an action research study, Linking Full Participation for Diversity and Inclusion, a collaboration with the national consortium Imagining America and The Center for Institutional and Social Change at Columbia Law School.

Dr. Sylvanus N. Wosu, associate dean for diversity affairs and associate professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Pitt, and Dr. Steven D. Abramowitch, associate professor of bioengineering at Pitt, facilitated workshops on creating positive relationships between mentors and mentees.

“Higher education institutions were not designed to be an impediment for underrepresented students, but sometimes systems evolve slowly,” said Dr. Wosu, who co-authored the initial proposal for funding.

“The culture we are trying to create is positive for all students because it encourages respect, effective communication and strong relationships.”

Other co-authors included Dr. Abramowitch and Dr. Mary E. Besterfield-Sacre, the Nickolas A. DeCecco Professor of Industrial Engineering, associate dean for academic affairs and director of the University’s Engineering Education Research Center. The grant continues through August 31, 2020, and additional funding for the program has been provided by the U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering, to offer students a stipend and tuition as well as support for summer study.

“Looking ahead, we are pursuing even more opportunities for funding for the program,” said Dr. Abramowitch. “The initial plan was always to expand assistance to other students in STEM fields after establishing the program with engineering students.

We would also like to provide more resources to assist students with professional development and more training opportunities for faculty members. The goal is to open a dialogue that helps uncover the struggles faced by underrepresented students and creates an academic and faculty culture for these students to be successful.”

committed to building

a culture of philanthropy

OFFICE OF DEVELOPMENT AND ALUMNI AFFAIRS

33 SWANSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING ANNUAL REPORT

The Office of Development and Alumni Affairs (ODAA) in the Swanson School of Engineering is committed to building a culture of philanthropy. In its truest definition, philanthropy is the desire to promote the welfare of others often via generous gifts of money and/or time.

ODAA launched a new, interactive website to showcase how the story of our philanthropic culture is unfolding. We are all connected and the work we do together supports the School’s mission.

As you click through the site, you will begin to visualize how alumni are connected to events and awards and each other! Donors are connected to their departments and to the students they support who are connected to the School, faculty, Dean Holder, and ultimately to the University. We will continue to engage our alumni via the website and social media for greater reach in the years ahead.

Please join us at engineering.pitt.edu/ODAA and help us launch our Office of Development and Alumni Affairs Instagram Account by tagging pictures of yourself (#SSOEALUMNI) in Swanson School/Pitt garb or perhaps holding a slide rule or the annual report in an unusual location!

We celebrated Dean Holder’s 20th anniversary at our annual Homecoming event on the patio of Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum. After the win against Penn State, we appropriately designed jersey-style T-shirts to commemorate Dean Holder’s tenure and presented him with a “Holder 20” Pitt football jersey.

We thoroughly enjoy engaging our alumni in person as well.

Please join us for our three annual events: The Annual Alumni Golf Outing, Homecoming, and The Distinguished Alumni Banquet as well as Swanson on the Road and additional pop-up events.

Russell J. Corsi, II BSIE ’70, MBA ’76

Marcella (Marcy) Johnson BSCE ’77, MSCE ’01

Lester (Les) C. Snyder, III BSCE ’79

Dean Gerald D. Holder PhD

DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARD

Lester C. Snyder III (BSCE ’79) Lester Snyder loves to build.

A favorite picture of himself is at age 11, wearing a hard hat, safety vest and work boots while standing on a barge docked at a jobsite on the Ohio River. Les’ father, who worked on heavy civil construction projects with Dravo Corporation, would bring him along to project sites to learn firsthand about the construction industry. Even after Les stopped following his father to work, he continued to follow his example.

“My dad is proof of what persistence can do,” says Les. “He enrolled at Pitt in 1942, and it took him 13 years to graduate with his degree in civil engineering.

His education was interrupted by multiple tours of duty during World War II and the Korean War. However, he persisted. He graduated from Pitt in 1955 and had a long and successful career with Dravo Corporation.”

When Les started college, he applied his father’s lessons in persistence almost immediately. He enrolled at Grove City College, but within his first year, he transferred to the University of Pittsburgh. While taking

night classes to catch up with the demands of the Department of Civil Engineering’s curriculum, he spent a lot of time out of the classroom learning whatever he could from people in industry and through a series of what he calls “self-created internships.” In his first full-time engineering position, he met Aloysius “Ish” McLaughlin, former president of Dick Corporation, who would become Les’ mentor.

“Ish really set the tone for me to understand how the construction industry is really about talented individuals. We build dams, bridges, highways and power plants, but getting there isn’t just about building a structure. Beyond my love of building – building just about anything – is the love we have for finding a way to meet the needs of all the people involved in the project, from the stakeholders to the people who will use these spaces throughout their lives,” says Les. Les graduated from Pitt in 1979 with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and from that moment was ready to start building. He began his career as

35

DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARDS 2016

SWANSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING ANNUAL REPORT

Robert F. Savinell MSCHE ’74, PhD ’77

Rebecca Gottlieb BSME ’93, PhD BIOE ’01

an estimator in pre-construction and transitioned to project operations and business development. He continued to oversee larger projects and bigger teams and in 1995, he joined American Bridge Company as executive vice president. During his first year working with the Pittsburgh-based civil engineering firm, he began a project that he still looks back on as the favorite construction job of his career: Castaway Cay for Disney Cruise Lines.

Castaway Cay is a port-of-call exclusive to Disney Cruise Line guests in the Caribbean Sea. Before Les and his team began construction in 1996, it was one of many unpopulated islands off the coast of the Abaco Islands group in the Bahamas. Despite working with a foreign government and coping with ravaging storms, Les led his team through the 19-month-long construction, which included over 600,000 cubic yards of dredging, a landing island with a bulkhead, 27 buildings of which most were themed, a power plant and a sewage treatment facility. All of the workers had to travel daily between Sandy Point, a fishing village with a population of 400 on mainland Abaco, and Castaway Cay. Despite the challenge of coordinating hundreds of workers, most of whom required training, no one was injured throughout the year and a half of construction.

Michael J. Pietropola, Jr. BSEE ’83

David L. Motley BSME ’80

“No matter where you go there’s an adventure involved, and that feeling has always been in my blood,” says Les. “A lot of Disney cruise ship passengers often say Castaway Cay was the best part of their trip. It’s a great feeling to know there was a need – in this case, for people to enjoy a Disney experience – and we were able to fulfill that need. Castaway Cay began my 22-year-plus relationship with Disney, and I’ve had a lot of fun working on Disney projects.”

While at American Bridge, Les also led construction during Epcot’s Millennium Expansion, including the 25-story installation of Mickey’s Magic Wand over Spaceship Earth. At the Pier 7 at Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia, construction was in progress during 9/11 and throughout the Afghan War, and American Bridge successfully continued construction while supporting the U.S. Navy through multiple mobilizations.

Les was responsible for expanding American Bridge Company’s operations along the eastern seaboard beyond Florida and into the Caribbean. He left American Bridge in 2004 to become chief operating officer of Barton Malow Company, a Michigan-based design and construction services company operating throughout the United States, Mexico and Canada.

At Barton Malow, Les aided the construction of the Otay Mesa Energy Center in California. Being Calpine Corporation’s first project since resurgence from bankruptcy, this project’s success was crucial to the company’s future. The natural-gas-fueled power plant opened on schedule and continues to supply 600 megawatts of power to the San Diego area. Les’ other projects at Barton Malow included Disney’s expansion of Fantasyland at the Magic Kingdom and the relocation of Pittsburgh’s Children’s Hospital to Lawrenceville – designed as a “green” campus, Children’s is one of the most environmentally-friendly hospitals in the U.S. In 2011, Les found an opportunity that he refers to as “too good to pass up.” He returned to Pittsburgh to help found Infrastructure and Industrial Constructors USA, LLC, branded as i+icon USA. Les serves as president and CEO of i+icon USA and works on awardwinning transportation, waterway, industrial, energy and recreational engineering projects.

“At i+icon USA, we set our own destiny. We’ve doubled in size since our founding in 2011,” he says.

“It’s a fun ride through the thrill of the construction industry. It’s not always smooth, but it is exciting.

People ask me what I’m going to do when I retire, but I don’t think I’ll ever retire. This is just too much fun.”

Since the creation of i+icon USA, the company has worked on massive construction undertakings such as the new State Route 6219 Beltway at Somerset. The project involved more than 11 million cubic yards of earthmoving with two major high-level bridges (plus four other bridges). The relationship with the U.S. Navy continues by assisting in the production of the Joint Modular Assembly Facility for Newport News Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia. The facility will eventually participate in the production of the next generations of ships for the Navy. Les has also returned to work on Disney property participating in the construction of the ever-evolving Hollywood Studios theme park.

Les and i+icon USA are currently working locally on the Charleroi Locks and Dam, River Chamber Monoliths M-22 to M-27 Construction, which is one of the beginning phases for the multi-billion-dollar replacement of the old locks along the Monongahela River by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ national infrastructure improvements.

In addition to his successful career in construction, Les is a member of the Associated General Contractors of America (AGCA) and received a lifetime appointment

to its Board of Governors. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for AGCA’s Education and Research Foundation. He is past Chair of the Building Division, the joint AIA-AGC Committee, the Private/Public Industry Advisory Council and a committee Chair of the Year awardee.

Les continues active involvement with the University of Pittsburgh as a member of the Swanson School of Engineering Board of Visitors and chairs the Department of Civil Engineering’s visiting committee.

Strengthening his bond between his family and the Pitt family, Les endowed the Lester C. Snyder Jr. Scholarship to Pitt’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in honor of his father and the role he played in guiding Les toward success.

The scholarship provides financial support for civil engineering students who have served in the armed forces or who actively participate in Pitt’s Reserve Officer’s Training Corps (ROTC) program so that they too, like Les, can follow his father’s example of hard work and persistence.

“I can look back at my time as a student and see what was so special about Pitt Engineering. It is no coincidence that when I look over the list of past Swanson School Distinguished Alumni awardees I see the names of people I know as dear friends and mentors. Pitt alumni stick round and continue to help the next generation of engineers succeed. Receiving the Distinguished Alumni Award reinforces in me the incredible feeling that comes with giving back to this wonderful community,” says Les.

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FACULTY AND STUDENT AWARDS

SWANSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING ANNUAL REPORT

2016 Faculty Awards Bioengineering Xinyan Tracy Cui, Fellow, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) Prashant Kumta, Carnegie Science Award for Advanced Materials

Chemical and Petroleum Engineering

Piervincenzo Rizzo, University of Pittsburgh Distinguished Research Award David Sanchez, Swanson School of Engineering Faculty Diversity Award; Pittsburgh Business Times 2016 Energy Leadership Award

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Robert Enick, Pittsburgh Business Times 2016 Energy Leadership Award

Samuel Dickerson, Participant in National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering Education Symposium

Susan Fullerton, Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award, Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU)

Steven Jacobs, Outstanding Educator Award, Swanson School of Engineering

Steven Little, Fellow, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) Götz Veser, Pittsburgh Business Times 2016 Energy Leadership Award Judith Yang, Fellow, American Physical Society

Civil and Environmental Engineering Kyle Bibby, ES&T Excellence in Review Award, Environmental Science & Technology Melissa Bilec, University of Pittsburgh Postdoctoral Association Mentor Award John Brigham, American Society of Civil Engineers Pittsburgh Section Professor of the Year Leanne Gilbertson, ES&T Excellence in Review Award, Environmental Science & Technology Kent Harries, Elected Fellow of the International Institute for Fiber Reinforced Polymer in Construction (IIFC); Innovation Award, 16th International Structural Faults and Repairs Conference (with former PhD student Xu Liang, University of Pittsburgh Distinguished Research Award John Oyler, History & Heritage Citation, ASCE Pittsburgh Chapter

Guangyong Li, Vice President for Conferences, IEEE Nanotechnology Council Zhi-Hong Mao, University of Pittsburgh Distinguished Teaching Award ’ Presidential Early Career Ervin Sejdic, Award for Scientists and Engineers, The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Industrial Engineering

In Memoriam Steven P. Levitan, the John A. Jurenko Professor of Computer Engineering Irving Wender, Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering

Transitions Engineering Science Program: Patrick Smolinski, PhD, P.E., associate professor of mechanical engineering and materials science, named Director.

Petersen Institute for NanoScience and Engineering (PINSE): Esta Abelev, PhD, formerly a research associate at Princeton University, named Technical Director. David H. Waldeck, PhD, Professor of Chemistry, named of Academic Director.

Civil and Environmental Engineering Mark Magalotti – Professor of Practice, non-tenure stream John Sebastian – Professor of Practice, non-tenure stream

Mary Besterfield-Sacre, Betty Vitter Research Award, Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN)

Julie Vandenbossche – associate professor with tenure

Joel Haight, Safety Professional of the Year Award for the Engineering Practice Specialty, American Society of Safety Engineers; Pittsburgh Business Times 2016 Energy Leadership Award

Steve Jacobs – assistant to associate, non-tenure stream

Paul Leu, UPS Award for Minority Advancement in Industrial Engineering, Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE)

Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science C. Isaac Garcia, Association for Iron & Steel Technology Jerry Silver Award for Best Paper Jörg Wiezorek, Birks Award for Best Contributed Paper, Microbeam Analysis Society

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Industrial Engineering Mary Besterfield-Sacre – associate to full professor Jeff Kharoufeh – associate to full professor Paul Leu – assistant to associate professor Ravi Shankar – associate to full professor

2016 Student Awards Interdisciplinary ASCE Ohio Valley Student Conference University of Pittsburgh: Third Place Overall Auburn Engineers Inc. Tenth Annual Ergonomics Design Competition University of Pittsburgh: First to finish in the Top 10 and take three spots in the Top Five Second Place: Andrew Becker (BioE), Mikayla Ferchaw (BioE), Lauren Judge (IE) Jonathan Kenneson (ECE), and Emily Zullo (IE) Top Five: Piyusha Sane (BioE), Riddhi Gandhi (BioE), McKenzie Kallquist (IE), Geena Petrone (IE) and Kor’an Sharif (IE) Top Five: Jacqueline Schauble (BioE), Cagla Duzbasan (IE), Max Jablunovsky (IE) and Anthony Sciulli (IE) Top 10: Kristyna Finikiotis (IE), Rob McCauley (IE), Sarah Masterson (IE), Emily Lain (IE) and Chris Jambor (IE) George Washington Prize, Swanson School of Engineering/Engineers’ Society of Western PA Winner: Miriam Rathbun (EngSci) Finalists: Hannah Fernau (CivilE), Jayne Marks (CivilE) and Nathan Smialek (BioE).

Semi-finalists: Angela Beck (BioE), Stephanie Cortes (ECE), Emily Crabb (ECE), and Alexander Josowitz (BioE) International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Foundation

Graduate: Donald Edward Kline (ECE) and Michael Gilbert Taylor (ChemE) Alumni: Kenechi Aretha Agbim (MEMS, Georgia Tech), Emmeline Blanchard (BioE, Georgia Tech), Jann Albert Grovogui (MEMS, Northwestern University), Lauren Ann Hapach (BioE, Cornell University), David William Palm (ChemE, Stanford University), and Christopher James Siviy (MEMS, Harvard University) Nuclear Energy University Program Scholars and Fellows, Department of Energy Bodhisatwa Biswas (ChemE, Scholar), Jacob Farber (MEMS, Fellow), Lee Maccarone (MEMS, Fellow), Miriam Rathbun (EngSci, Scholar)

Aakash Sudhakar, NSF National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation Fellow Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Patrick Asinger, Goldwater Scholar Blake Dube (undergraduate) and Alec Kaija (graduate), with Mark Spitz (undergraduate), School of Education, Randall Family Big Idea Competition Grand Prize Charles Hansen, Goldwater Scholar Kendra Lavalee, Co-op Student of the Year, American Society for Engineering Education and Swanson School of Engineering Kutay Sezginel, InnoCentive PRize Civil and Environmental Engineering

National Association of Engineering Student Councils

Eric Danko, Peter J. Mascaro Fellow in Construction Management

University of Pittsburgh Engineering Student Council, Best Overall Small Council

Nathan Schaeffer, ASCE Student Leadership Award

Society of Women Engineers – National Conference

Master Builders Association Scholars: Taylor Williams (First Place), Thomas Tresky (Second Place), Amy Hummel (Third Place)

Member Retention Award (Large Section Category) Outreach MOU Partnership Award (Large Section Category) Collegiate Poster Competition 1st Place Alexandra Delazio for “Electronic Alignment Angle Measurement in Lower Limb Prosthetics – Versatile Device Design” Outstanding Collegiate Section – Gold Level

Electrical and Computer Engineering Emma Raszmann, IEEE PES Scholarship Plus Scholarship Industrial Engineering Kelsey Metheny and Garrett White, First Place, National Organization of Business and Engineering Harvard Business Review Case Study Competition

Gold Medal, “Hot Metal Switch” Team: Claire Chu (Chemistry, Psychology), Maya Lemmon-Kishi (BioE), Aife Ni Chochlain (Molecular Biology, History), Praneeth Peddada (BioE) and Maddie Perdoncin (Biology)

Bioengineering

National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellows

Timothy Keane, Whitaker International Program Scholar

Zachary Patterson, NSF National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation Fellow

Undergraduate: Emily June Crabb (physics and astronomy, CoE) and Trent Maxwell Dillon (CivilE)

Saundria Moed, Whitaker International Program Fellow

Timothy Ryan, Carl Zeiss Student Scholar, American Society for Precision Engineering

Alexandra Delazio, First Place, Society of Women Engineers Undergraduate Collegiate Technical Poster Competition Alex Josowitz, Whitaker International Program Fellow

Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Rachel Lukas, Ellwood Group Metallurgy Scholarship

2016 STATISTICS

39 SWANSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING ANNUAL REPORT

Undergraduate Enrollment in the Swanson School

Research Productivity in the Swanson School Research Expenditures ($ Millions)

Graduate Enrollment in the Swanson School

Engineering Endowment: Book and Market Value Increases Goal: $100 Million

SAT Scores, Incoming First-Years, Swanson School

Congratulations to

Our Graduates!

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH Swanson School of Engineering 104 Benedum Hall 3700 O’Hara Street Pittsburgh, PA 15261

BUILDINGCELEBRATION 2016