Ingenuity Spring 2016

STUDENTS P. 4

ALUMNI P.14

CULTURE P.18

FACULTY P. 28

Designing to make a difference

Dynamic brother-sister duo storms Silicon Valley

Online ranks, decision making, the space people, and more

Factors for the right fit

Ingenuity THE RUSS COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY • 2015–2016

ARE WE FALLING APART? Amid Ohio’s aging infrastructure, the Russ College paves the way toward technological – and human – solutions

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02 | DEAN’S LETTER 04 | STUDENT PROFILE 08 | STUDENT ACHIEVEMENTS 10 | RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT 12 | RESEARCH AWARDS

RIDE, FIONA, RIDE

14 | ALUMNI PROFILE

Every year, mechanical engineering seniors develop and design solutions to improve life for community members big and small. The helping of joy students get in return reminds them of the power of creating for good.

16 | ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENTS 18 | OUR CULTURE

14 SIBLING RIVALRY?

There’s no such translation for alumni and Macedonian natives Slave Jovanovski, BSCS ’07, of Google, and Delfina Jovanovska, MS ’11, of Apple.

22 | FEATURE STORY

EDITORIAL CREDITS

28 | FACULTY PROFILE

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Colleen Carow, BSJ ’93, MA ’97, MBA ’05

29 | FACULTY NEWS

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Peter Shooner, MS ’10

30 | CLASS NOTES 32 | CO-OP/INTERN PROFILE 33 | CREATE FOR THE FUTURE

WRITERS Colleen Carow Holly Craddock Peter Shooner Jeff Zidonis PHOTOGRAPHER Ashley Stottlemyer DESIGN Ullman Design Marietta, Ohio

Share your comments, feedback, and memorable Russ College moments by writing us at INGENUITY@OHIO.EDU or INGENUITY MAGAZINE, RUSS COLLEGE, STOCKER CENTER 177, 1 OHIO UNIVERSITY, ATHENS, OH 45701.

ON THE COVER: Navigating increasingly crowded, crumbling, and underfunded roadways, Associate Professor and Department of Civil Engineering Chair Deb McAvoy leads faculty and student research teams to ensure our future infrastructure is safe, efficient, and economical.

For more, see pages 22-27. www.ohio.edu/engineering

CREATING [ROBOTS] FOR GOOD. Medical devices. Drones. 3D printers.

The robots have come, and they’re here to stay. Enter the student org Create Robots and Technology for Good (CRT4G), whose mission is to share how robotics can improve the world while giving students like civil engineering junior Aaron Pike – here assembling a 3D-printed robotic hand – tactile experiences beyond the classroom at events like this November’s CRT4G-hosted “RoboFest.”

Discovery. Departing Athens briefly for a rare tour of NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland this summer, International Space University’s (ISU) 28th Space Studies Program (SSP15) participants Lars Hoving (L) and Wendy Mensink (center) from The Netherlands, and Helen Freeman (R) from the U.K., stand in awe of the center’s Reverberant Acoustic Test Facility and its 36 nitrogen-driven horns, which can produce an overall sound pressure level of 163 dB to simulate the high noise levels during a space vehicle launch and supersonic ascents. For these future space industry leaders, the summer’s sights, sounds, and new connections will help define their career trajectories – and through them, the future of space exploration.

For more on the ISU experience, see pages 20-21.

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Ingenuity | 2016

FROM THE DEAN’S DESK 350 guests. 2,341 students. 95 percent. 120,000 square feet.

No matter how you measure it, the numbers made for a banner year.

It began when the world’s premier space education institution held its international summer program (SSP15) on campus from June to August. International Space University (ISU) landed 250 participants and faculty from 30 countries in Athens, including ISU SPP15 Director John Connolly, NASA’s chief exploration scientist; NASA Administrator Charles Bolden; astronauts Harrison Schmitt, Jeff Hoffman, and Suni Williams (U.S.), and Bob Thirsk (Canada), Paolo Nespoli (Italy), Soyeon Yi (Korea), and JeanJacques Favier (France); and many more. Nine weeks later, after more than 100 OHIO media hits from San Francisco to Europe, we were exhilarated and exhausted – and campus and community had been treated to a summer of events with “those space people,” who became renowned across the region for their expertise, worldliness, and friendliness. Read more in our spread on pages 20-21.

When fall hit, we welcomed a record crop of students all around: 1,801 undergraduates, 415 master’s candidates (257 of them studying online), and 125 doctoral candidates.

An impressive 95 percent of recent undergraduates who responded to our exit surveys reported that they had jobs or grad school plans, going to work for employers such as Honda, Parker Hannifin, DuPont/Chemours, Nationwide, the U.S. Army, Ariel Corp., and more.

This year, we’ll send our students off with a foundation built by faculty including a record 12 new hires this past fall – notably, the fundamentals group we’ve cultivated. Two math instructors, four engineering fundamentals lecturers, and a student success advisor now help ensure that Russ College undergraduates get off on the right foot, so they can stay enrolled and succeed as Russ College students – and alumni.

This summer, we’ll no doubt miss our space compatriots, but we’ll be focused locally on our latest mission – a new 120,000-square-foot research facility for our growing research outfits, with more and deeper opportunities for undergraduate research and continued training of graduate students.

Although we’re still several years away from breaking ground, we cleared an important hurdle this March as the Board of Trustees approved the University’s Comprehensive Master Plan, which included our general plans to completely renovate the West Union Street Office Center. Affectionately called “WUSOC,” you might know it as the HDL Center, or even the McBee building. We still have a few more hurdles to clear, but we remain hopeful for continued progress toward turning this vision into reality – and I look forward to keeping you updated on what we think will be some future banner years to come.

Sincerely,

DENNIS IRWIN, PHD, PE Dean Moss Professor of Engineering Education Thomas Professor of Engineering

Photo: NASA/Bridget Caswell

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STUDENT PROFILE

Difference by design

By Colleen Carow | Photographs by Ashley Stottlemyer

Create for good. It’s great to have a battle cry, but do you get behind what you shout about? Ohio University mechanical engineering senior design students – as part of their “Designing to Make a Difference” capstone course – do. Hearing pitches from local businesses and individuals, OHIO’s Innovation Center, and alumni, students choose projects that speak to their own interests, skills, and hearts – then are assembled into teams. Over the course of the academic year, they research, design, prototype, test, build, and present, making profound connections with their communities, their team members, themselves – and all the good that engineering creates.

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To follow the rest of the teams’ journeys, visit www.ohio.edu/engineering/ mechanical/senior-design/.

Ingenuity | 2016

[1] [2]

Team Stairway to Home Khalid Abdulsalaam • Jessie Raines • Kameron Starr • Newman Telischak • Greg Wambold

:

The Challenge: Build a combined wheelchair lift and staircase to increase accessibility at residences that can’t be served by traditional means.

The team crafted a deck with 2X12 steps bolted onto a motorcycle scissor lift, which can rise between safety railings. They hope to patent their design, which is easily adjustable and can be matched to many homes, for future manufacture.

[3]

[1] Giving Starr (L) and Telischak (middle) a ride, Abdulsalaam (second from right) controls the lift to ensure a smooth vertical motion is present. “Everyone on the team tried it out,” Raines said.

[2] The team paints the completed lift.

[4]

[3] Phase three paperwork, early spring 2016. The team gathers to document their failure evaluation analysis, fatigue life, and safety concerns.

[4] Scavenging parts for tracks to go beneath the lift for even vertical movement, Raines (L) and Wambold (R), a longboarder, remove wheels from a skateboard.

The wheels were affordable and quick to obtain, as opposed to the task of machining them. The team later created brackets and added an axle.

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[2]

[1]

Thousand Jobs Haiti Michael Altvater • Emily Ash • Garett Clem • Alec Pidala • Jacob Smith

:

The Challenge: Develop an economically sustainable tool manufacturing line that can be implemented in Haiti, with local people trained as operators producing up to 100 tools per day.

The team chose to produce a machete as the first tool but wants the line to be adaptable for different tools. They plan to travel to Haiti in May 2016 to install the line and train employees.

[1] Altvater (L) and Clem (R) document a process. Each team member tested each one. [2] Ash fishes the drilling jig out from the CNC machine used to make the jig. “It happens a lot,” she said, of the jig falling into the CNC’s dielectric fluid.

[3]

“ THIS IS THE EPITOME OF CREATE FOR GOOD. WE’RE GOING TO IMPACT A COUNTRY BY CREATING JOBS WHERE THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IS 70 PERCENT. BEING ABLE TO HELP IMPACT THAT

BY EVEN A HANDFUL OF PEOPLE IS REALLY COOL.” — EMILY ASH

[5]

[4] [3] Clem (L) and Ash (R) mill a block of wood to hold machetes when being drilled for handle pin holes. [4] Clem trims an angle iron that will be used to support the sheet steel when cutting blanks.

[5] Thousand Jobs Haiti shows it’s not all work and no play.

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[1]

[2]

[3]

[1] Mission “Bike Fit” accomplished. Logue (middle) offers Fiona high five as Sitterly (L) and mom, Megan Meyer (R) look on. [2] Sitterly installs a PVC prototype of the trailer arm towbar to test for overall dimensions of the system, which is fabricated of steel and universal joints from bike components. When towed, the trike’s front wheel is elevated from the ground. [3] Fiona tries out her new bike.

Team Victory Lap

[4]

Joe Hurd • Katie Logue • Joe Hurd • Mark Ryba • Brian Sitterly

:

Create a human-powered vehicle for five-year-old Fiona, who has agenesis of the corpus callosum, a condition that affects her motor skills, strength, speech, and coordination due to lack of communication between the two hemispheres of her brain.

The team designed and built a tricycle that Fiona can use to improve strength and coordination while having fun with her family, and that can be attached to any standard bicycle with minor modifications and is adjustable to Fiona’s growth and development for at least three years.

“ I'VE BEEN MORE MOTIVATED TO WORK ON THIS PROJECT THAN ANY OTHER IN MY ACADEMIC CAREER, AND IT'S ALL BECAUSE WE HAVE A VERY DESERVING CUSTOMER. WE'RE USING ENGINEERING TO CHANGE A LITTLE GIRL’S LIFE.” — KATIE LOGUE

[4] The team shows Fiona a mock-up of special handle bars designed to accommodate her grip. “As soon as she saw the tricycle, she knew it was hers,” Hurd said.

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STUDENT ACHIEVEMENTS

$ in monetary awards

SENIOR DESIGN SILVER Five electrical engineering students took their senior capstone design course project a step further, and their ambitions paid off. They placed second out of twenty-seven international teams in the 2015 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Antennas and Propagation Society Antenna Design Challenge in Vancouver, Canada. Tasked with designing and building a Bluetooth antenna for a body area network (BAN) – a system of devices worn either on or near a person’s body that operate for the benefit of the user – the competition’s only all-undergraduate team designed a wearable medical device with five sensors that measure ambient and body temperatures, heart rate, oxygen levels and fall detection and send that data to an Android smartphone app through a Bluetooth antenna.

STARTUP WEEKEND K.O. Forty-eight hours. Six strangers. One idea. This fall’s Startup Weekend Athens, organized by OHIO’s Innovation Center brought together computer science seniors Wilson Taylor and Zach Perrault , mechanical engineering seniors John Herbert and Peter Shoup, specialized studies senior Amy Miller, and finance analytics and management information systems senior Mikey Greive to form team “Combat Interactive.” Their idea? Combine martial arts and cutting edge virtual reality technology to make training outside of the dojo easier. Using an Xbox Kinect to capture real-time motions and an Oculus Rift to visualize the virtual environment, the team walked away with second place and more than $1,600 in prizes.

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SERVING FOR GOOD Creating for good is a full-time job – or if you’re engineering technology and management senior Ethan Ida, it’s two full-time jobs. Consistently at the top of his academic class, Ida has filled his time beyond the classroom with his duties as a cadet in the Army ROTC. His excellent GPA and devoted service were recognized by the Society of American Military Engineers with the ROTC Award of Merit. One of only 20 Army service people to receive the award, Ida plans to continue in the Army Reserves as an engineering or signal officer after graduation and eventually pursue his passion in working in the automotive industry.

Ingenuity | 2016

PROFICIENT IN PROGRAMMING

INDUSTRY RECOGNITION FOR BUDDING ENTREPRENEUR Backed by a $3,000 scholarship from the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) – and an additional $2,500 award from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers – engineering technology and management senior Stephen Toth is well on his way to achieving his goal of owning his own business. Toth’s summer internships as a mechanical designer for Ludowici Roof Tile taught him how to design and manufacture products, and his side business restoring antique trucks and farm equipment has given him the confidence to keep pursuing his dream – his own large-scale manufacturing operation for off-road and agricultural parts.

Three Russ College students put their programming skills to the test in a competition featuring more than 2,000 universities from more than 100 countries. Junior Kimberly Fisher and sophomore David Masters, who are studying computer science, and electrical engineering senior Jared Lindsay, took part in the Association for Computing Machinery’s International Collegiate Programming Contest, known as the “Olympics of Programming Competitions.” Tasked with solving complex programming problems through the five-hour event, the team combined its creativity, teamwork, and innovation to place 21st out of 131 teams in the North America East Central Region.

(SUPER) HUMAN-POWERED LEADERSHIP INSPIRING INNOVATION Two Russ College freshmen are becoming a resource for innovation right here at OHIO. Engineering technology and management major Ben Scott and chemical engineering major Faith Voinovich have been named University Innovation Fellows, a National Science Foundation-funded program administered

by EPIcenter and Stanford University. The entrepreneurial duo – both have already started businesses of their own – are currently developing a project called “C-Suite,” which they hope will create a centralized hub of labs and a makerspace to connect engineering, business, fine arts, and other groups of students to fuel the culture of innovation at OHIO.

Russ College students rarely shy away from a challenge. So when a team of nine engineering students from the OHIO chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) had the opportunity to compete in the 2015 Human Powered Vehicle Challenge (HPVC) in Florida, they jumped in with both feet – and three wheels. The first OHIO team to compete in the HPVC, they pitted their self-designed three-wheeled recumbent trike against other university teams from around the country. Placing 13th overall and receiving a sportsmanship award for helping other teams keep their vehicles on track, the team returned to OHIO only wanting more.

This year’s challenge? OHIO and the Russ College will host the 2016 HPVC East competition, which will draw hundreds of student teams from across the globe to Athens from May 13-15. Eager to share the beauty of campus with their peers, mechanical engineering master’s student Cody Petitt is heading up competition planning, and sophomores Justin Gillum and Matt McKenzie are the team captains who will lead OHIO across the finish line.

Get the inside scoop on what students are up to by visiting the Russ College news center at ohio.edu/engineering/news

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RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT

BIG DATA COMES TO DINNER

Instead of counting calories and reading food labels, what if all you had to do to track your diet was snap a picture of your plate? A multidisciplinary group of OHIO researchers is harnessing the power of data and deep learning to bring diet management into the 21st century, with the hope of helping curb the rising obesity epidemic. Associate Professors of Computer Science Chang Liu, Rasvan Bunescu, and Jundong Liu; and Assistant Professor of Endocrinology Aili Guo, are developing a smartphone app that analyzes dietary logs, food images, and nutritional databases to provide a convenient nutritional intake estimate for patients.

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Ingenuity | 2016

A LEANER OHIO Engineering technology and management (ETM) faculty are improving the world around them – literally. A multidisciplinary group, led by ETM Chair Todd Myers and Assistant Chair Zaki Kuruppalil, is applying Lean Enterprise Systems principles to administrative processes, starting with OHIO's process for onboarding 2,500 student employees each fall. Backed by an OHIO Innovation Strategy planning grant, “SmartWORKS” comprises faculty and administrators from the College of Business, College of Communication, the Office of Instructional Technology and Research, and TechGROWTH Ohio from the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs, among others.

BANDING TOGETHER

Even though millions suffer from diabetes, patients often have unique responses to treatment and life events that affect blood glucose levels, which makes controlling blood sugar difficult. Sponsored by the National Science Foundation’s Research Experience for Undergraduates and advised by Associate Professors of Computer Science Cindy Marling and Rasvan Bunescu, and Professor of Endocrinology Frank Schwartz in the cross-disciplinary SmartHealth Lab, computer science juniors Charlie Murphy and Hannah Quillin devised a system to combine data from a patient’s physiological sensor band with life event and glucose monitors and then visualize the information using their own software design. They believe the “PhysioGraph” will give physicians greater insight into what individual patient data means, leading to more effective treatment plans.

CLEAN WATER, CLEAN AIR As carbon capture and storage technology slowly comes online at power plants across the country, a major concern is the heavy water usage in the process, which traps carbon dioxide in water, creating a highly salt-concentrated brine. Backed by the U.S. Department of Energy, OHIO, West Virginia University, and American Electric Power, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Jason Trembly has started a nearly $1 million project to adapt the novel water treatment process he has developed for fracturing wastewater to reduce water consumption at fossil-fuel-based power plants.

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RESEARCH AWARDS

Almost

$15 in research and sponsored programs

$901,258 from Petroleum Institute

$478,394 from the Ohio Coal Development Office

To study the formation and prevention of “black powder” produced by corrosion processes in gas pipelines

To scale up Russ Professor Gerri Botte’s novel “coal-to-graphene” process, which converts coal to a clean, advanced, and high-value material through an energy efficient and clean process

Institute for Corrosion and Multiphase Technology

TOP TEN

“Volatile Corrosion Inhibitor for Prevention of Black Powder in Export Gas Pipelines”

Center for Electrochemical Engineering Research “Ohio Coal Conversion to High Value Graphene: Pilot Scale-up”

+ a look at awards from additional research units or departments that received funding

$660,007 from the Federal Aviation Administration To provide technical support to update the performance specifications and develop new performance requirements for VOR (very high frequency omnidirectional radio range) and DVOR (Doppler VOR) systems Avionics Engineering Center “DVOR Performance Specification Update and New Performance Requirements Development”

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$463,600 from Berrie Hill Research Corporation To develop a mobile, high-gain satellite antenna facility for detailed characterization of GNSS signals for attenuated measurements due to foliage and ionospheric scintillation Avionics Engineering Center “High Gain Satellite Dish Development”

Ingenuity | 2016

$439,701 from the Ohio Department of Transportation

$200,000 from the National Science Foundation

To evaluate the cause of premature failure of unbonded concrete overlays

To design low latency, high bandwidth, power-efficient and reliable Networkon-Chips (NoCs)

Ohio Research Institute for Transportation and the Environment

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

“Forensic Study of Early Failures with Unbonded Concrete Overlays”

$229,943 from a leading advanced energy technology company To design and fabricate a pilot scale vertical wet electrostatic precipitator (WESP) and to study the performance of this vertical WESP using different discharge electrodes Center for Advanced Materials Processing

“SHF: Small: Collaborative Research: A Holistic Design Methodology for FaultTolerant and Robust NoCs Architectures”

$176,288 from the Ohio Department of Transportation To analyze the in-field performance of asphalts incorporating ground tire rubber in Ohio Civil Engineering “Analysis of Ground Tire Rubber (GTR) in Mix Design on Local Roadways in Ohio”

$134,951 from the Muskingum Valley Educational Service Center To develop a web-based application for more efficient scheduling of school buses for 20 school districts and one developmental disabilities board Center for Advanced Systems and Transportation Logistics Engineering “Web-based Cross District Transportation Scheduling Application”

$723,013 from a leading plastic fuel systems supplier To evaluate the technical feasibility of an advanced fuel cell system to achieve the performance required for a vehicle range extender Center for Electrochemical Engineering Research “Advanced Fuel Cell System: Proof of Concept”

“Design of a Pilot Vertical WESP and Testing of Discharge Electrodes”

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ALUMNI PROFILE

ALL IN THE FAMILY Silicon Valley sibs show how the ties that have bound them – from Macedonia, to Athens, to California – are thicker than water

Photos: Jim Gensheimer, MS ’99

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By Colleen Carow

Ingenuity | 2016

Slave Jovanovski, BSCS ’07, and Delfina Jovanovska, MS ’11, share more than Russ College degrees and a passion for software. They share blood. Natives of Macedonia, Slave, an engineering manager at Google, and Delfina, a software engineer at Apple, live in nearby San Francisco districts – Delfina in the Marina district, on San Francisco’s northern edge, overlooking Alcatraz; and Slave in the urban Mission district, the neighborhood where San Francisco was born. Don’t believe the word on the street about whether their companies play – these alumni are no dueling duo. The Bobcats meet for dinner or brunch when the planets align, or they travel together, often with mutual friends.

What do you do?

S: I work on application infrastructure projects at YouTube in the areas of Channels, Playlists, and Machine Learning. The recent releases of the YouTube kids, gaming, and music applications were built on the platform my team develops. I’ve worked on everything from uploads, to live streaming, to building the YouTube homepage, to algorithmically generated channels and playlists.

D: I’m in Apple’s Localization and Release Engineering Department. I’m responsible for few projects that are key to our localization for software and documentation – they’re desktop apps for internal clients at Apple and vendors across the world.

How did OHIO prepare you for your career?

D: Working on projects for the computer science

graduate program was very close to the process I’ve encountered in the tech industry, from the planning of features and milestones, to the tight deadlines we often seen in our everyday work.

S: I learned everything from the math and science behind algorithms, to the basics of programming languages, to working on a team – all skills applicable to today’s work environment.

“The education I got at OHIO really helped me in getting the job that I wanted.”

– DELFINA JOVANOVSKA, MS ‘11

Treat us to a day in your life.

Are the perks as good as we hear they are?

started, I’d get to work before noon. I had one or two meetings a week, and nobody cared when I came or left as long as I did my job. Now, I run multiple teams and have a dozen reports. I spend quite some time coordinating, designing, reviewing, and going to meetings.

I usually try to be at the office by 10 a.m.

Sometimes, I take my first morning meeting from home. Google provides a shuttle to my office, but I hate being on a schedule, so I prefer to drive.

Each day is different but a combination of mail, programming, and meetings. We do a lot of our work in mail. Programming – I still love it, though lately I’m spending more time writing design documents about new projects, while team members do the implementation.

provided with breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I always have lunch. Most of the time I skip dinner, to meet friends for a bite and catch up. We also have a gym, but I go to handball practice two nights a week. Fridays are especially relaxed – I have no meetings, and work ends around 3 p.m. with a YouTube “TGIF,” a social gathering with music, drinks, and snacks.

S: I’ve always had a flexible schedule. When I first

D: Apple, like many other tech companies, provides employees with a shuttle. It has WiFi, so I usually start my day reading the news, checking email, and planning for my day. When I’m not very busy, I’ll read a book or the news, or I’ll even sleep!

I have a flexible schedule but as I get more responsibilities as work, I have more meetings.

During the day, my work is divided between meetings and programming mostly and email and support for my customers.

“ THE PEOPLE WHO SUPPORTED ME, THE FRIENDS I MET, THE VAST AMOUNT OF KNOWLEDGE TRANSFERRED TO ME, THE COURT STREET SHUFFLES AND LONG NIGHTS – THEY ALL LEFT IMPORTANT MARKS ON ME.”

S: Google is everything they say it is. We’re

D: I’m very fond of Apple’s kitchen, which offers breakfast, lunch and dinner. I think Apple has the highest quality food of all the tech companies in Silicon Valley that I’ve visited, so I usually have at least two-thirds of meals on campus.

I also try to take advantage of the very nice wellness center and gym at Apple, for a Zumba or Ujam dance classes either during lunch or after work. It’s my favorite way to relax and stay healthy.

Hobbies?

S: Team handball. I play for the San Francisco Calheat and participate in tournament and U.S.A. national championships. I was actually the top scorer at the U.S. nationals in 2014. Before college I played semi-professionally in the Macedonian Super League – getting paid, too! Otherwise, traveling is an obsession. I’ve traveled to more than thirty countries in the last five years.

D: I often play tennis. I take classes from time to time to improve my technique or play just for fun. I’ve also picked up on hiking, as we live in an area surrounded with beautiful nature.

– SLAVE JOVANOVSKI, BSCS ’07

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ALL IN THE FAMILY

ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENTS

… Continued from Alumni Profile

Been back to campus?

S: Many times, maybe ten since graduation. At first I’d come back because I still had many friends there. Then there were graduations and Homecomings to be at, even Halloween. Lately, I go once every year or two. The latest was a recruiting trip on behalf of Google. It has been a great opportunity to give back to the Russ College – we already have our first intern starting soon from that trip!

D: I’ve been back to campus twice. I’d love to visit more and be involved. Ohio University isn’t on Apple’s recruitment list, but another alum and I have been talking about organizing something on our own when our schedules will overlap – hopefully this year.

Where do you want to go from here, professionally?

D: I’ve taken on more of a leadership role in my department, on top of the programming work that’s expected of a software engineer. This gives me opportunities to change how things are being done or define something that’s never been done before. In the future, under the right circumstances, I’d like to manage my own team.

S: Accomplish as I much as I can at Google, the best company for a software engineer in the world – but eventually open and run my own business.

Life goals?

D: Doing things I’m passionate about and being with inspiring people that make me happy – family being part of it. I’d like to be more involved in projects that can make greater impact. One of them is about getting more women in the tech industry.

ROOKIE IN THE WINNER’S CIRCLE Adam Stevens, BSME ’02, always knew he wanted to pursue an engineering career in racing – but this year he found himself behind the wheel – figuratively, at least. As NASCAR Sprint Cup crew chief for Joe Gibbs Racing and driver Kyle Busch, Stevens had a whirlwind rookie season, which started with Busch’s devastating crash before the season even began, resulting in injuries that caused Busch to miss 11 races. By focusing his efforts on driver substitutes, Stevens helped strategically position the team to clinch the championship win in November – the first Sprint Cup victory for a rookie crew chief since 1982.

S: To wake up every day being inspired by what I am about to do.

STATE OF EXCELLENCE Two recent Russ College chemical engineering alumni are already being recognized as statewide role models for their accomplishments and continued involvement in the STEM field. Keeley Schneider, BSCHE ’11, and Brian Boggs, PHD ’10, were named 2015 STEM Exemplars by the Ohio Academy of Science and Believe in Ohio. The award recognizes leaders who are graduates of Ohio high schools, attended college in Ohio or elsewhere, and are now employed or retired in a STEM field in Ohio. OHIO Distinguished Professor and Russ Professor of Chemical Engineering Gerardine Botte, who mentored the duo, says Boggs, now a chief scientist at Water Star, and Schneider, a senior quality control engineer at TPC Wire and Cable, will only become more profound role models in the years to come.

“The education you get at Ohio University and the Russ College can get you a job in any company in the world.” – SLAVE JOVANOVSKI, BSCS ‘07

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Ingenuity | 2016

RECALCULATING

Alumnus receives honorary doctorate Late Russ College alumnus and Retired Brigadier General James M. Abraham, BSEE ’42, BSISE ’48, received an OHIO Honorary Doctorate of Public Service in September in recognition of his military and civilian achievements, and his countless contributions to the University. Abraham, who fought on Omaha Beach during WWII’s invasion of Normandy, earned numerous military honors, including the Legion of Merit, four Bronze Stars, three Meritorious Service Medals, three Army Commendation Medals, the Normandy Medal, and the French diploma of appreciation.

OHIO Avionics Engineering Center researcher Kuangmin Li, PHD ’15, wants safer skies – and his groundbreaking research in new aviation navigation technology is paving the way. Because satellitebased GPS technology is vulnerable to outages, Li is focusing his research on improving legacy enhanced Distance Measuring Equipment systems to serve as a GPS alternative for navigation. For his pertinent and excellent work, Li received the 2015 William E. Jackson Award from the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics, marking the fifteenth win from OHIO in the award’s 40-year history.

As a student, he helped establish WOUB, the University’s first radio station. As an alumnus, he created the Simultaneous Membership Program, the nation’s first tuition grant program for National Guard soldiers which saved the University’s ROTC program and was adopted at institutions across the country. He served 30 years on the Russ College Board of Visitors and received many University and civilian honors.

In September, President McDavis conferred the degree, with Dean Dennis Irwin and among family and friends, privately due to Abraham’s declining health. “General Jim,” as he was affectionately called, succumbed to his second battle with cancer two months later. It is a loss that won’t soon be forgotten.

SUCCESS STORIES

CHOOSE YOUR YOUR OWN ADVENTURE Alumni impact has quite the range – from inspiring small communities to transforming the world.

Alan Schaaf, BSCS ’10, founder of image-hosting site Imgur, and Michael Logue, BSA ’12, MBA ’13, a combat veteran who helped establish the OHIO Office of Veterans Affairs, received 2015 Charles J. and Claire O. Ping Recent Graduate Awards from the OHIO Alumni Association. During his return to campus over Homecoming Weekend, Schaaf hosted a pitch session with Russ College students about their own side projects, coaching them through their challenges. His advice to the unique minds around the table: “You’re a unicorn. You’re a psychopath. Now, change the world to look how you want it to look.”

When Russ College alumni return to campus to accept awards, it’s not just about getting the hardware – it’s about connecting with current students and inspiring them to create for good in their own careers. Joseph Jachinowski, BSEE ’79, who received the 2015 Konneker Medal for his demonstrated excellence in innovation, invention, commercialization, and entrepreneurship, first took time to share with Russ College students his career’s trials and tribulations that led to his current position as president and CEO of Mevion Medical Systems, a privately-held company that aims to offer affordable and compact proton therapy systems for radiation treatment of cancer.

Jachinowski is the third Russ College community member to have received the award; Computer chip pioneer Hua-Thye Chua, BSEE ’59, received it in 2014, and Emeritus Professor William Beale received it in 2013 for developing the Free-Piston Stirling Engine.

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Ingenuity | 2016

In memoriam:

TAMMY JORDAN 1970-2015

The Russ College lost one of its own last summer, just a few months after our past issue was released. Tammy Jordan, administrative specialist in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, succumbed to cancer in late July.

Diagnosed with stage four adenocarcinoma of the lung, a form of lung cancer, she had been on medical leave since the prior fall.

Jordan, who was hired as EECS graduate secretary in 2002, was promoted to administrative specialist in 2009. She served as chair of OHIO’s Classified Senate from July 2009 through June 2010. She was twice named OHIO’s Classified Employee of the Month and was honored in 2012 and 2015 with the Russ College Outstanding Classified Employee Award.

Russ College Dean Dennis Irwin, former EECS chair of the school, shared his personal vision of his longtime colleague, whom he, like many, came to call a friend. “Seeing Tammy was to see a smile. We’ve lost not only a dedicated employee, but also a talented friend who was, as she always was, optimistic to the end of her life. She will be missed enormously.”

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OUR CULTURE

Climbing the online ranks Delivering the same rigorous and relevant learning experience that residential students receive at the Russ College in a fully online environment isn’t an easy task.

But our three online master’s degree programs are meeting the challenge – and they’re only getting better with time. U.S. News & World Report has ranked OHIO as 29th best institution for online graduate engineering programs, up from last year’s ranking of 36. The master’s degree programs in electrical engineering and civil engineering, combined with the Master of Engineering Management program, enrolled nearly 300 students spring semester. The opportunity to create for good now reaches experienced engineers and technologists across the country.

To learn more about the Russ College’s virtual-learning programs, visit ohio.edu/engineering/academics/online/.

Women aviators spice up fundraising November’s cloudy skies and cool weather created the perfect environment for the OHIO chapter of Women in Aviation International’s annual chili cook off and fly-in at the Ohio University Airport (UNI). Now in its fourth year, the open-house event, which sees aviators fly in from around the region to connect over bowls of unique chili, is the student organization’s largest fund raiser. Members are thus able to travel to the WAI International Conference each year, where they meet fellow aviators and network with industry representatives.

Passion for good Mechanical engineering senior design teams have racked up more than $100,000 in prize money from various competitions – and they’re not stopping any time soon. Teams recently won first place in the 2015 James F. Lincoln Arc Welding Foundation competition and second place in the 2015 SourceAmerica Design Challenge. The “Designing to Make a Difference” program continues to give students opportunities to solve real-world problems, from a baler to process recycled fabric to a cutting machine to aid in the construction of Passion Flowers at Athens’ Passion Works Studio.

To see what this year’s teams have been working on, turn to page 4-7 for our photo essay on their journey from abstract problem to tangible solution.

Russ College to host DMO conference

Decision-making technology is based on mathematical programming, decision analysis, and simulation. The Russ College will host the International Conference on Decision Making and Optimization in Engineering, Economics and Social Sciences (DMO 2016) from September 19-22, 2016. Focused on decision making and optimization applied to a wide range of systems designed by politicians, medical doctors, engineers, and business people, DMO 2016 will delve into how the quality of those decisions is of crucial importance to the health of our world. The conference will feature a day devoted to the science of presidential elections, a keynote delivered by Harvard University Professor and 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize recipient Eric Maskin (economics), and host of accomplished plenary speakers from around the globe. For more information, visit www.ohio.edu/engineering/dmo-2016/.

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OUR CULTURE

ATHENS, OH 45701: CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE For nine weeks last summer, Athens was it.

International Space University (ISU), the world's premier international space education institution, brought 100 participants from 30 countries, and 150 more faculty members, to town from June 8-August 7, with the Russ College as host.

Engineers, scientists, and legal and medical professionals – from government and space agencies, academia, and aerospace companies – participated in the intense professional development program on space programs and enterprises, including lectures and activities with leading space professionals and astronauts.

Clockwise, from top left: Space experts from more than 30 countries gather on West Green. First responders for the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster share first-hand accounts of the tragedy. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden inspires a packed house at Baker University Center.

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Dozens of public events, from robot competitions and rocket launches, to an astronaut panel and visit from NASA administrator Charles Bolden, engaged the entire Athens community with wonder, learning, and experiences above the horizon.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience – a story best told by looking back at what we saw, those we met, and the friends we made along the way.

Ingenuity | 2016

Far left: Landing in Athens aboard her Space RV, fourteen-year-old Alyssa Carson (NASA call sign “Blueberry”) shared her dream with local kids of being the first to land on Mars. Left: SSP participants break from their studies to socialize at one of many culture nights, with food, drinks, and activities celebrating their home countries’ heritage. Below left: ISU staff celebrate with Dean Irwin (center, R) after the after the day-long rocket launch at the OHIO Airport. Below right: Four international astronauts, including moonwalker Harrison Schmitt (L), regaled hundreds with the stories – and lessons – they brought back from space.

Left: The Academic & Research Center living room atrium becomes a 21stcentury Coliseum for the autonomous robotics competition.

Above: Renowned robotics expert Kazuya Yoshida of Japan, who coached robot design and build, calls the action.

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FEATURE STORY

falling

are we

Amid Ohio’s aging infrastructure, the Russ College paves the way toward technological – and human – solutions

By Peter Shooner

On a late-June day 60 years ago, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, which pledged $25 billion to construct 41,000 miles of what would become the Interstate Highway System – and the largest public works project in American history at the time.

Eisenhower’s passion for the project can be traced to his participation in the U.S. Army’s first transcontinental convoy from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco in 1919.

The trip took the 28-year-old officer and his fellow soldiers two months to complete as they were slowed by cracked bridges, broken equipment, and bogged-down vehicles.

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Ingenuity | 2016

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FEATURE STORY

ast forward to 1991. After 35 years of construction, the original scope of Eisenhower’s project was completed – and the cross-country journey that took the Army convoy two months was cut down to just five days.

Our infrastructure – from our roads and bridges, to our pipelines and electric grids, to our solid waste and water treatment plants – has the power to transform our lives, redefine how our society functions, and raise the scale of what we can accomplish.

But when infrastructure fails, like the 2007 I-35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis or leadcontaminated drinking water in Flint, Michigan, the consequences can be dire.

Who keeps watch? Every four years, civil engineers from across the country collaborate on the American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, which grades the nation’s major infrastructure categories on a simple A to F scale. In 2013, the nation’s overall grade was a “D+,” meaning “poor” or “at risk” – and implying that more headline-making failures might be on the horizon.

At the least, the low grade means that instead of driving economic growth the way a healthy infrastructure should, our aging systems are a drag. In fact, the 2013 Report Card estimated that without a $3.6 trillion investment by 2020 to bring our grade up to a “B,” the poor state of our infrastructure could cost $3.1 trillion in lost GDP and as many as 3.5 million lost jobs.

The solution, according to ASCE President Mark Woodson, starts with a rethinking of public investment priorities, especially when it comes to surface transportation.

“First and foremost, we haven’t changed our funding model in too long, and that’s the federal gas tax and the state gas taxes,” Woodson says.

“The federal tax has not changed in twenty-plus years, and it did not have a built in inflation factor, so we’re taxing at 1993 dollars.”

Russ College Department of Civil Engineering Chair Deb McAvoy, who was recently elected chair of the ASCE Committee on Education, says the funding that does come in ends up being spread far too thin.

“We just simply don’t have the money to replace everything that needs it. There’s just not enough honestly to go around,” McAvoy says. “Politically, everyone always has something else they’d prefer to lobby for other than infrastructure, so we’re losing those battles in D.C.” Citing a lack of “political will to make a difference at the federal level,” Woodson says

the nation’s engineers must focus on long-term technical solutions to ensure we get as many miles out of any new infrastructure the government is able to invest in.

“We are constantly working for new technologies, and something ASCE is stressing is more sustainable infrastructure and more resilient infrastructure, because we know we have to make things last longer,” Woodson says.

Russ College faculty and graduate student researchers across disciplines are doing just that – developing technologies and discovering information that can not only improve existing infrastructure, but that form the foundation of tomorrow’s roads, bridges, pipelines, and National Airspace System.

BUILT TO LAST Russ Professor of Civil Engineering and Associate Director of the Ohio Research Institute for Transportation Research (ORITE) Shad Sargand is developing practical solutions to improve our current transportation infrastructure while ensuring new projects can incorporate the most sustainable materials and designs available.

Sargand’s two recent research awards from the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT), totaling more than $750,000, will assess how concrete behaves on the state’s highways and what new designs would be stronger and more economical.

First, Sargand’s team of ORITE researchers and graduate students are analyzing and combining data sets from pavement studies across the state to determine the optimum thickness for long-life concrete pavements, taking into account numerous elements that can change the ideal design.

“What we’re trying to do is optimize the design, because when we’re designing a concrete pavement, we don’t know whether the thickness that we design is the right thickness or not,” Sargand says. “In the past, these designs have been based more on the load, but now because of the technology, we can include environmental effects like temperature that were in the past ignored.”

Sargand and team are also examining sections of Interstates 70, 77, and 90 where an unbonded concrete overlay was used to rehabilitate badly

Russ Professor of Civil Engineering Shad Sargand, pictured here in front of the Russ College’s Mobile Infrastructure Lab, uses the wheeled research unit to analyze pavement failures in the field, informing new, longer-lasting designs.

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Ingenuity | 2016

Specializing in ultra-high performance concrete applications, Civil Engineering Professor Eric Steinberg (L) and Associate Professor Ken Walsh (R) hope the advanced material can improve traditional concrete bridges like Athens’ Richland Ave. US 33/50/32 overpass above.

deteriorated concrete pavements. This common technique involves constructing a concrete pavement on top of an existing concrete pavement with a “bondbreaker” material, usually hot mix asphalt, layered in between.

While this method has successfully extended the life of the state’s pavements in most places, some have failed prematurely. ORITE is currently conducting forensic evaluations of these premature failures to determine what caused the damage and if it is reoccurring, how it can be avoided on future projects.

Developing stronger, longer-lasting construction materials and methods becomes even more of a priority when designing bridges – which can span gaps of just twenty feet to miles across.

Civil Engineering Professor Eric Steinberg specializes in ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC), a concrete-like material that at seven times the strength of traditional concrete behaves more like steel but at a fraction of the cost.

About three years ago, Steinberg had the idea to use UHPC to solve a common problem occurring on adjacent precast prestressed box beam bridges, a popular design for small-to-medium spans where

multiple long concrete box beams are placed side-byside until the needed width is reached.

“Part of the issue with these bridges is the longitudinal joints between the box beams themselves,” Steinberg says. “The state has been using these for forty-plus years, but they’ve usually had problems with those joints cracking and leaking and then causing corrosion of the reinforcement.”

Steinberg’s idea was to use UHPC as the grouting material connecting the box beams, which would not only reduce cracking but also strengthen the entire bridge. Teaming up with Civil Engineering Associate Professor Ken Walsh, Steinberg was able to modify a traditional box beam bridge design to incorporate UHPC with minimal changes, and in 2014, the duo got the chance to put their idea to the test.

The pair, funded by ODOT and the Federal Highway Administration’s Innovative Bridge Research and Deployment Program, coordinated with Fayette County’s Engineer to construct the country’s first adjacent box beam bridge to use UHPC. Spanning sixty feet across Lees Creek near Washington Court House, Ohio, the bridge is fully equipped with instrumentation so the team can monitor how well the design holds up. Data is still

Prepping to monitor their innovative design, Walsh (L) and Steinberg (R) install sensors underneath their test bridge near Washington Court House, Ohio.

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FEATURE STORY

flowing from the bridge’s sensors, but Steinberg says the early results are promising.

After roads and highways, one of the most ubiquitous elements of our infrastructure is the oil and gas pipeline network that keeps a steady source of energy flowing from production fields to refineries, distribution centers, and homes.

But unlike our roads, where drivers can feel every crack, bump, and pothole, the biggest threat to the integrity of our estimated 2.6 million miles of oil and gas pipeline is hidden. To get the full picture, you have to know what’s going on inside the pipe, where chemicals that are captured with oil and gas at the well mix with small amounts of water to create corrosive liquid and vapor.

“These pipelines could last forever if they weren’t degrading chemically, which is corrosion,” says Russ Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Srdjan Nesic, director of the Russ College’s Institute for Corrosion and Multiphase Technology (ICMT).

“So that’s what we focus on, and that’s why our research is quite central to maintaining and having a high-quality pipeline infrastructure.”

One of the largest facilities of its kind in the world, the ICMT has received more than $30 million in research funding since 2002, almost entirely from

private industry. The Institute’s flagship research project is its longstanding Corrosion Center Joint Industry Project (CC-JIP), supported by a consortium comprising twenty of the world’s largest energy companies.

By joining the CC-JIP consortium, energy companies help guide ongoing projects, all of which inform modeling software to predict how corrosion will occur over time, as well as how effective various corrosion inhibitors will be in different environments.

The foundational nature of ICMT’s research, largely supported by a consortium of cooperating private companies, is what sets it apart from other facilities.

“Nobody is going to compete on corrosion.

Nobody is going to have less corrosion than the next guy – they all want to have less corrosion. It’s more or less a matter of survival,” Nesic says. “Studying corrosion is a matter of keeping this whole thing alive, because if it falls apart, everybody loses.”

TO THE SKIES Commercial jets might make cruising 30,000 feet in the air look effortless, but pilots and their aircraft are supported by a complex network of infrastructure that enables safe takeoffs, flights, and landings in our

increasingly crowded National Airspace System (NAS).

In February, the Avionics Engineering Center signed a $1.6 million, five-year agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Flight Inspection Services to provide technical support to enhance the development, evaluation, and certification of the airspace navigational systems, instrument flight procedures, and avionics equipment.

Center Director Mike DiBenedetto explains that part of the FAA’s thorough testing of equipment includes flight inspections of new installations prior to use in the NAS and periodic inspection of existing equipment. These inspections help ensure that the equipment operates properly before being brought online and that it continues to operate properly during its service lifetime.

“They’re really in that frontline role of ensuring that this element of the infrastructure is available and suitable for use by the flying public,” DiBenedetto says.

The FAA will rely on the expert research team at the Avionics Engineering Center to help develop the pass/fail parameters for the equipment and instrument procedures being inspected.

“We’ll help them determine the requirements in terms of the assessment, and in terms of what specialized equipment flight inspection aircraft may

Faculty and student researchers operate the Institute of Multiphase Technology’s large experimental flow loops – some of the longest of their kind in the world.

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Ingenuity | 2016

Doctoral student Sarah El-Dabaja sits in the Russ College’s immersive driving simulator, which she uses to test driver interaction with automated driving technology.

have to have in order to accomplish those assessments in an airborne environment,” DiBenedetto says.

Even as the NAS moves toward satellite-based navigation, sustaining a reliable ground-based infrastructure remains vital, since GPS signals are susceptible to solar activity as well as jamming or “spoofing.” Through projects like this and others, the researchers in the Avionics Engineering Center are ensuring safer skies for years to come.

THE ROAD AHEAD McAvoy, a traffic expert who has most recently led ODOT-funded research projects designing and testing wildlife protection methods on the new US 33 Nelsonville Bypass near Athens, paints a bleak picture of our future roadways, if population increases and lack of new investment continue.

“By 2025, they think we’re going to be at a complete standstill because of freight movement,” McAvoy explains. “It’s not necessarily the automobiles, it’s the semi-trucks that are out there trying to move freight from one place to the other, and they’re actually the ones causing the most damage to the roads.”

Unfortunately, the solution isn’t as simple as making the roads and highways larger.

“We don’t have any more capacity. We can’t build any more lanes on freeways. We’ve really squeaked out the last of the capacity on the roadways through technology to improve traffic flow, so the real option is getting people off the road.”

Even though “driverless” cars and computerassisted driving technology might not reduce the number of cars on the road, these systems theoretically should make more efficient use of the existing space on the roads, since automated vehicles can follow one another more closely and at higher speeds.

While electrical engineers and computer scientists continue to drive driverless technology ahead full steam, one Russ College civil engineering doctoral student is asking a more practical – and more human – question: What happens when that technology fails at seventy miles per hour, or more?

Sarah El-Dabaja, studying under McAvoy’s guidance, is using the College’s immersive driving simulator to test how drivers perform before, during, and after using a fully automated and an assistive system.

“So how is that behavior going to compare to the manual driving, and if you switch back to manual afterwards, how are people going to drive? Are they going to do better or worse than they did driving with the system?” El-Dabaja asks.

“We don’t have any more capacity. We can’t build any more lanes on freeways. We’ve really squeaked out the last of the capacity on the roadways through technology to improve traffic flow, so the real option is getting people off the road.”

– Deb McAvoy , Russ College Department of Civil Engineering chair

Her hypothesis? She thinks performance after using a connected or automated system will be worse because the driver will lose focus or become too dependent on the computer controlling the car.

“There will be some places where the technology won’t be there, in rural areas especially,” El-Dabaja explains. “When it comes to technology, people tend to think that it can do everything for them, and they’ll fall asleep in the driver’s seat, or they think they can’t trust it at all and they’ll never turn it on. We need to find the happy medium in between.”

THE HUMAN SOLUTION So what does the road ahead hold? Without increased public investment, will the technical engineering breakthroughs ever be realized?

ASCE President Woodson believes technology – combined with advocacy – is what provides our infrastructure a sustainable future.

“As you’re talking about students and young people, they’re all going to be challenged to do more

with less,” Woodson says. “So as the communities continue to grow, we have to remember that we have limited resources, and we’re going to have to have much more innovative designs and concepts on how to do things than we’ve had in the past.”

McAvoy agrees that engineering solutions are critical, but she pushes the future engineers in her classroom to see the problems facing our infrastructure as human problems, rather than technical ones.

“We use the Nelsonville Bypass in class quite a bit, because it’s controversial. We have people who live in Nelsonville in the same class as people from Southeast Ohio, and some say, ‘We needed that so we could increase our economy in Southeast Ohio,’ and those from Nelsonville say, “Well, we just lost it,’” McAvoy says. “So having those conversations in the classroom I think really helps make them more well-rounded students – to see the economic, environmental, social, up-to-date technology issues, and put them all together. We’re just trying to produce engineers who consider more than just the engineering solution.”

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FACULTY PROFILE

MAKING THE WORLD SAFER FOR EVERYONE As a master’s student at West Virginia University, Schwerha’s research was funded through a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) training program.

Twenty years later, she’s leading not only her own NIOSH-funded occupational safety training project – but also Russ College ISE master’s students while they gain hands-on experience to make the world a more efficient, safer place.

“We work in this world where we think about efficiencies constantly, so we want to create efficiencies that are then safer for a person,” Schwerha says. “If I can improve a process in a way that reduces the risk of a physical injury, or reduces cognitive load, or the individual doesn’t burn out – that’s going to make it better for everybody.”

The NIOSH training program grant, which was recently renewed for an additional five years with a nearly $600,000 award, involves a four-semester program for graduate students that includes on-campus and industry internships, specific coursework, and professional activities.

Students also work in Schwerha’s Human Factors and Ergonomics Lab, where they learn

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Working to inspire young women.

Training tomorrow’s safety engineers.

Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering Diana Schwerha has spent her career creating healthier environments for others.

By Peter Shooner and Jeff Zidonis

how to maximize the compatibility between people, processes, and products for improved safety, performance, and user satisfaction – work that touches almost every part of daily life.

For example, Schwerha says, the shape of an office worker’s chair or the height of a desk are influenced by the study of ergonomics, but so is the way a computer’s operating system is designed.

“Signage, colors, contrasts, size of font – it’s all human factors,” Schwerha explains. “Even though a student might not have any idea what the word means, they’ve experienced tens of things even before getting to class that involved human factors and ergonomics. It’s everywhere.”

Schwerha is also leading a two-year, $245,000 grant from the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation (BWC) in which she and students like ISE master’s student Alyssa Boudinot are focused on documenting the benefit from integrating safety into process improvement metrics and manufacturing.

“We’ve been going out to different safety council meetings and individual companies to conduct our research,” Boudinot says. “It's really a great opportunity to meet safety

professionals in the field and see how different companies work.”

Schwerha continues to advise students in the American Society of Safety Engineers and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), which has seen exponential growth in recent years thanks to increased student outreach and initiatives like the “SWEsters” mentoring program that pairs upperclassmen with freshman women.

“We’re building an infrastructure of support in this college for women,” Schwerha says. “The fact that they can relate to each other and support each other is really significant in terms of keeping them in the college.”

Schwerha says the professional experiences like those her master’s students gain through their research, and the personal networking available through groups like SWE, make students more well-rounded upon graduation, which is vital to success in today’s diverse world.

“If you get a good solid foundation, you can do so many things,” Schwerha says. “The idea is to give you a skillset where you have a lot of opportunities and a lot of choices, not to give you a skillset that’s really narrow – because that’s not how the world works.”

FACULTY NEWS

Ingenuity | 2016

GERARDINE BOTTE: 2015 OHIO UNIVERSITY DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR

In recognition of her pioneering electrochemical research and dedication to inspiring the next generation of engineers, Russ Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Gerardine Botte received the 2015 Distinguished Professor award, OHIO’s highest academic honor, during last year’s spring commencement ceremonies. The lifetime distinction allows Botte to name one undergraduate student annually to receive a year’s full tuition scholarship, creating opportunities for her students to become the future creators of good.

TOP OF HER CLASS

CAREER TRACK FOR GOOD

Department of Civil Engineering Chair and Associate Professor Deb McAvoy has been elected to chair of the American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE) Department Heads Council, where she’ll assist in developing national programs to boost civil engineering research and education, from primary to post-secondary. In the two-year position, McAvoy will represent ASCE internationally, foster communication among civil engineers across the country, and organize a three-day national conference for fellow department heads.

In only her second year as assistant professor of mechanical engineering, Sarah Hormozi’s Russ College career is off to a great start as the recipient of the National Science Foundation’s five-year, $500,000 CAREER grant. Using the support to study the fluid dynamics of slurries, like those in landslides and underwater avalanches, Hormozi plans to bring her research into the classroom and beyond, participating in women-focused outreach programs like TechSavvy and a residential technology camp.

SENIOR MEMBER LIGHTS THE WAY

LEE JOINS NATIONAL ACADEMY OF INVENTORS FELLOWSHIP

When The Optical Society searched its rolls to elect its newest senior members, it didn’t need to look any further than visiting Stocker Professor of Electrical Engineering and optoelectronics expert Faiz Rahman. As a senior member of the leading professional society for researchers examining the science of light, Rahman will lead one of its technical groups and hopes to focus on the development of LED and solid-state lighting.

With more than 200 U.S. and international patents, many in use within the chemical industry, Sunggyu “K.B.” Lee can now add the title of National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Fellow to his already distinguished career leading innovative research in alternative energies and advanced materials. Lee, who is Russ-Ohio Eminent Scholar in Syngas Utilization and professor of chemical engineering, joins four other OHIO NAI fellows, including the Russ College’s Gerardine Botte (ChBE) and David Bayless (ME).

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CLASS NOTES

Here’s what Russ College alumni are up to – and how you’re creating for good.

MARK TRANKINA, AAS ’86, BSAS ’89, flies both the 757 and 767 aircraft as a pilot for Delta Air Lines Inc. He also works in their public relations department, where they host many different events for kids, such as taking terminally ill children to the “North Pole” to meet Santa, and doing an autism flight for kids in need. On top of that, he works for Pilot for Kids as well.

The North Pole flight is something that Delta Air Lines does every year. We take terminally ill children in a 767 airplane, usually high speed down the runway and back to the gate where they are greeted by Santa Claus upon return. Then there is a party for them and their parents. Many people participate as elves, clowns, and Santa. It is a very big honor to be part of this event. It is a time where they are not thinking about their illnesses.

BEN ASHMAN, BSEE ’10, an aerospace engineer for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, will receive an electrical engineering Ph.D. this year from Purdue University.

ANDREW BAILEY, BSIT ’08, is a metalforming manager for F&P America Manufacturing, Inc. KYLE BALZER, BSIT ’09, was recently promoted to engineering manager for Whirlpool Corporation, where he ensures they build units to the highest degree of quality in the largest dryer manufacturing plant in the world. He’s getting married in May 2016.

GREGORY BANYAY, BSME ’04, MSME ’06, is a principal engineer for Westinghouse Electric Company.

TONY BIANCO, BSME ’87, is a senior equipment breakdown engineer for Chubb Insurance. He has worked in the commercial insurance industry for 29 years, and his latest project is focused on proton beam accelerators.

EARL BLOAM, BSEE ’61, retired as division chief for NASA’s Glenn Research Center.

BRUCE BURTON, BSME ’55, is a coordinator for international admissions at Ohio Northern University (ONU). He was a faculty member in ONU’s College of Engineering for 40 years and served as dean of engineering for nine years.

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THOMAS CASTON, BSEE ’11, is a warranty engineer for Eaton, where he oversees field repairs of medium voltage controls and drives.

I volunteer at local homeless shelter, Homeward Bound.

BO DECOY, BSETM ’15, is a manufacturing engineer for Federal Mogul Corporation and is engaged to be married to an OHIO mechanical engineering alumna.

LANKESH DEVALAPURA, MSISE ’08, works on data mining and analysis as a project lead for Brillio LLC. BILL DIXON, BSEE ’10, is an electrical engineering manager for Siemens.

JARED DONNAMILLER, BSME ’06, a project manager for AKF Group, is the lead plumbing and fire protection engineer on the Central Park Tower, which at more than 1,500 feet will be the tallest residential building in the country.

I bring innovative mechanical, electrical, and plumbing, and fire protection design to the New York City skyline.

TODD EBERT, BSEE ’92, is a food and beverage industry manager for RoviSys. I am RoviSys’ OHIO ambassador for hiring. We currently employ twenty full-time OHIO alumni and four co-op students.

“I organize retired industry professionals to evaluate air quality and emissions issues for government and industry clients.”

–GARY HERWICK, BSME ’69

COURTNEY EDWARDS, BSIS ’08, mechanical and industrial engineering group head for seat and carpet center operations at Gulfstream Aerospace, is engaged to be married in October 2016.

I volunteer for Habitat for Humanity and children’s STEM events.

ARINZE EZEPUE, BSCE ’10, CERT ’10, is an engineer for Turner Construction Company. He recently worked on The Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center Expansion Project Cancer and Critical Care Tower, as well as CRAA Port Columbus Ticket Lobby Modernization Project.

Through participating in the construction of several pharmaceutical renovations and expansions, I am creating good for all walks of life.

JOSHUA GORDON, BSA ’14, is a TRAQPak associate product manager for ARGUS International, Inc., which offers live and historical flight tracking capabilities.

JEFFREY L. GROSS, BSCHE ’83, is a process engineer for Jacobs Engineering.

SCOTT HAMILTON, BSEE ’94, is a staff engineer and project lead of a software implementation that monitors machine data for Honda Manufacturing of Alabama LLC. His daughter is a freshman at OHIO’s Honors Tutorial College.

SHARON HARMSWORTH, BSISE ’82, continues to enjoy her career in the rail industry as equipment vice president for TTX. I visit Chicago high schools with the Chicago Engineer's Foundation and encourage students to pursue STEM careers.

GREG HARVEY, BSME ’08, is an account manager for the Timken Company.

WALTER HOBOCIENSKI, BSIS ’76, MSIS ’77, retired in 2014 after working for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as assistant federal security director for 12 years.

MARY FLYNN, BSCE ’97, was promoted to associate vice president at Michael Baker International’s Baton Rouge, Louisiana, office, where she handles construction services for the State of Louisiana. She and her Bobcat husband took their daughter to her first OHIO game at the Camellia Bowl in December 2015.

Ingenuity | 2016 BRIAN MANNING, BSCHE ’10, a laboratory technician for Worthington Industries, is engaged to be married in spring 2017.

HOWARD W. MANSELL, BSME ’62, retired.

SHAWN NOGA, BSIT ’92, a commander in the U.S. Navy, became the officer in charge of the Fleet Readiness Center West Detachment in Fort Worth, Texas.

I manage human resources, labor, and cost in support of the U.S. Navy.

JOSH FRASH, BSCHE ‘15, a manufacturing and technology engineer for The Chemours Company, recently became assistant to operations overseeing Teflon PFA Finishing at the Washington Works plant. He ran a personal best at last October’s Chicago Marathon (2:37).

I facilitate and improve the quality production of Teflon plastics that go into innovations for new USB 2.0 cables, smart watch bands, and semiconductor industry wire coatings.

TONY HOLLIS, BSIT ’91, is in charge of continuous improvement, start-up support, construction projects, and strategic project support as the director of engineering for Saddle Creek Logistics Services.

Our company is the largest for-hire transportation company in the U.S. that uses compressed natural gas to fuel its fleet.

R. JASON HOOPES, BSETM ’11, is a corporate tooling engineer for HFI, LLC. He has worked on successful launches of components for Tacoma, Maxima, and Malibu motor vehicles.

BRIAN KISHPAUGH, BSEE ’06, is a proposal manager for Intelligrated at their new office in Seattle.

DENNIS A. KNAUS, BSME ’66, is president of Enviro-Tek. He recently invented the technology and designed the extrusion machinery to produce polyethylene foam at densities as low as 1 lb./cu. ft.

I was the primary contractor for the United Nations in phasing out ozone depleting substances under the Montreal Protocol in the manufacturing of extruded thermoplastic foams.

GORDON W. KOHLER, BSEE ’89, is a chief manufacturing engineer for the Timken Company.

His son will be attending OHIO in fall 2016.

REBECCA KULICH-PEREZ, BSEE ’92, is a software development senior manager for Aptos in Columbus.

RAMIRO M. LEON, BSEE ’88, is an international analyzer department manager for Exterran Corporation.

STEPHEN LEWIS, BSME ’70, MS ’73, is a senior vice president for Medallion Capital, Inc. I’ve helped support the growth of at least 150 small businesses over the last 20 years. I get my inspiration from the creative entrepreneurs we finance.

CHARLES LOVEJOY, BSIT ’09, who received a M.S. in mechanical engineering in 2015 from the University of Cincinnati, is original equipment manufacturer field service engineer for GE Aviation, where he primarily services NetJets’ fleet in Columbus.

NICHOLAS D. SYLVESTER, BSCHE ’60, is a chemical engineering professor at the University of South Alabama and is serving as interim chair of the chemical engineering department for the 2015-16 academic year.

IVAN TAY, BSEE ’94, is a vice president of product management for Supermicro.

WILLIAM TSCHUDI, BSME ’70, retired in July 2015 from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he worked as a program manager on energy efficiency research programs.

SCOTT NYKL, MSCS ’09, PHD ’14, is a new assistant professor of computer science for the Air Force Institute of Technology and conducts research for the U.S. Air Force. He is researching autonomous methods to enable unmanned aircraft to perform aerial refueling using stereo vision.

DAVID VANDERWERKER, BSME ’91, is a supply chain leader for General Electric’s solid oxide fuel cell pilot plant.

STEPHEN M. POOLE, BSCE ’73, is president and principal engineer for Earth Strata Geotechnical Services.

GRANT RHUE, BSA ’15, is a flight crew member and pilot on a Gulfstream 280.

ANTHONY SCHWARTZ, BSEE ’07, MSBE ’09, is working in Washington, D.C., for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He works with several early stage companies to take new drugs developed at the NIH, National Cancer Institute, and other entities into clinical trials for cancer treatment. Last year, he co-founded Athencion Biotechnology Corporation with a few of his former professors at OHIO. I hope to take drugs we developed at OHIO to the clinic.

KEVIN WEISSMAN, BSEE ’06, computer engineering, was promoted to advisory solutions architect last July for EMC Corporation.

I protect important data around the globe.

TIMOTHY SHAW, BSETM ’11, has been a project engineer for OEM/Miller, Ilpea Industries for four years.

DOUGLAS WERNER, BSISE ’86, is a business manager for RBC Bearings.

RONALD SNODGRASS, MSISE ’07, is a director of plant operations and clinical engineering for St. Vincent Charity Medical Center. He was recently commissioned as a Navy Supply Corps Officer through the Navy's Direct Commission Officer program.

Professionally, I strive to create a safe environment of care for everyone that walks into the hospital. I also find it important to share my experiences and knowledge with young professionals interested in the healthcare engineering field.

JONATHAN WILKOF, BSIT ’05, was promoted to vice president of Stark Industrial LLC in 2015.

ROBERT WILKENS, PHD ’97, is a professor at the University of Dayton, where he’s being promoted to associate dean for research and innovation in the School of Engineering.

SCOTT SOLOMON, BSEE ’08, recently moved back to Ohio, where he works as a data center engineer for Amazon, after living in Washington, D.C., and North Carolina.

JIM WYLLIE, BSCS ’05, MSCS ’08, was recently promoted to director of engineering for Akamai Technologies, Inc., where he leads four teams on three continents to monitor and improve performance of their systems.

My team enables more ways to get news, video, and entertainment to more people through the Internet.

“I volunteer to help high school and college students through the JPMorgan Code for Good Challenge each year.”

–ERIC MAY, BSISE ’15

Catch up with more alums at www.ohio.edu/engineering/alumni Get in touch. Let us know what’s new with you at www.ohio.edu/engineering/alumni/update.cfm

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CO-OP PROFILE

DRIVING FORCE

By Holly Craddock

“It’s crucial to get experience so that when you get out into the workforce, you have knowledge to work in a team and have a certain work ethic.”

— EWANI PATE

Technology is at the heart of the modern automobile manufacturing plant, where machines do the heavy lifting and assembly is mostly automated. But the system can’t work without electrical engineering junior Ewani Pate, who makes sure the driving force – or the programmable logic controls – in the assembly plant is always up to speed.

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After landing an internship with General Motors at a regional conference of the National Society of Black Engineers, Pate spent the summer as a controls engineer at GM’s transmission operations plant in Warren, Michigan.

There, he implemented the company’s network recovery system to prevent file loss in a digital disaster and mapped the different networks of communication between the plant’s machines and computers. This summer, he’s heading back to continue what he started after accepting a second internship with GM. Inspired by the historically innovative auto industry, Pate says he didn’t expect to work

for a prestigious company like GM – but the experience taught him much more than just manufacturing.

“Being an engineer, it’s crucial to get experience so that when you get out into the workforce, you have knowledge to work in a team and have a certain work ethic – knowing what to do, how to do it, and how to go about solving different problems,” Pate says.

“I got to learn how to talk to and work with other full-time employees and fit into the work environment as a whole, and I strongly encourage people to press for internships and co-ops that much more.”

CREATE FOR THE FUTURE

Ingenuity | 2016

Connect. Engage. Inspire.

By Colleen Carow … that’s just what a dozen Russ College student aviators – men and women alike – did at the 27th annual Women in Aviation International (WAI) conference this March.

Working the ground in Nashville, Tennessee, they attended seminars on topics like aviation law and networked with alumni and employers.

They also shared their inspiration with the next generation, dispatching backpacks emblazoned with our “Create for Good” battle cry to hundreds of middle and high school girls at “Girls in Aviation Day.” Our students were able to take flight thanks to the Russ Vision Fund, created with our

transformational $124 million estate gift from Fritz, BSEE ’42, HON ’75, and Dolores Russ. The Russes spent many hours in the air themselves, with Fritz piloting and Dolores cued to spot the tarmac. Today, the fund supports student conference and competition travel, student research, and other activities beyond the classroom.

“We met inspirational women who have changed lives and set fantastic examples. And it was amazing to share aviation and engineering with young girls, and hear about their goals and interests,” says senior flight major Colleen Thompson, WAI chapter president.

WANT TO HELP MORE STUDENTS CONNECT, ENGAGE, AND INSPIRE? Make a charitable gift to the Russ Vision Fund. For more info., contact Senior Director of Development Scott Gluck at glucks@ohio.edu or 740.593.2533, or visit ohio.edu/engineering/giving.

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SMILES AND SKILL-BUILDING The Karol A. and Joann Ondick Engineering Ambassadors (pictured in green) are used to welcoming guests to campus and giving tours to prospective students, but on a September weekend they welcomed their own kind – members of the Engineering Ambassadors Network, composed of fellow ambassadors from universities across the region. Hosting a three-day work workshop, Russ College students joined friends from Penn State, Ohio State University, West Virginia University, and Eastern Michigan University for a crash course on effective communication for engineers.

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