Ingenuity Spring 2020

OHIO UNIVERSITY | 2020

Ingenuity the RUSS COLLEGE of ENGINEERING and TECHNOLOGY

Meet Dean Wei The Russ College welcomes its first female dean

DEAN’S DESK

Collaborating for good It’s an honor to be writing to you as the new dean of the Russ College! I began my new post in July.

I’d like to thank Dean Emeritus Dennis Irwin for his extraordinary seventeen-year tenure and strong dedication to the College.

As you may know, I was at the University of Connecticut for seventeen years. In getting to know the Russ College, I’ve become deeply impressed with our talented faculty, dedicated staff, quality students, passionate alumni, and tremendously supportive leadership. On the other hand, I’m also shocked by the poverty of the Appalachian region – so it is the College’s commitment to enhance our industry engagement and contribution to regional workforce and economic development.

Here are details on some new initiatives: We’ve developed a Teaching Academy to mentor our junior faculty. We’re also coaching them in grant writing, and senior faculty are providing informal coaching.

Work on our new research building is progressing: We’ve just completed schematic design, and we’re moving into the design development phase.

Our new college Industry Advisory Board will spur collaboration and support workforce development. The Russ Research Center in Beavercreek, Ohio, is key; we aim to work closely with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to enhance research productivity.

We’ve also launched our new website at www. ohio.edu/engineering/.

Higher education is transforming to address changing markets. With your support, we will work strategically and walk out of this better, stronger, and tougher. I look forward to collaborating with you!

Sincerely, MEI WEI, PH.D. Dean and Moss Professor of Engineering Education

CONTENTS 0 2 Student feature 0 4 Our culture 0 6 Student achievements 0 8 Research feature 0 9 Research highlights 1 0 Faculty profile 1 1 Faculty news 1 2 Alumni feature 1 4 Alumni achievements 1 5 Leaving a legacy 1 6 Create for the future 1 7 Internship profile

Editor Colleen Carow, BSJ ’93, MA ’97, MBA ’05 Writers Marissa McDaid, BSJ ’14 Bennett Leckrone, BSJ ’19 Baylee Demuth, BSJ ’21 Photographer Ashley Stottlemyer 08 Coal composite tech

Design Sarah McDowell, BFA ’02 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, Ohio, 45701.

Table of contents

ABOVE: The Russ College and Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs hosted environmental researchers and students from across the region in October at the 2019 Ohio River Basin Consortium for Research and Education (ORBCRE) Symposium.

COVER IMAGE: Aaron Harden, BFA ’08

DIGGING DEEP

& Blasting Off

Russ College students excel in the classroom, but going beyond it is truly where they shine. Programming self-navigating vehicles, sharing emotional highs and lows at national competitions, and building devices or infrastructure that improves the lives of others, our students go forth in their mission to create for good.

Student feature

Photo by Archie Scott

ABOVE LEFT: The Professional Autonomous Vehicle Engineers (PAVE) team takes their small-scale remote controlled autonomous vehicle for a spin on West Green. Adviser Jim Zhu, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, involves the group with his patent-pending autonomous vehicle guidance and trajectory tracking system, which is funded by the state of Ohio and in testing to move to marketplace.

BOTTOM LEFT: The Ohio University student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers rolled up their sleeves on an early spring day to build a kayak ramp at Strouds Run State Park.

ABOVE: The Astrocats, Ohio University’s rocket design and engineering team, launched successfully at the 2019 Spaceport America Cup in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

“It doesn’t matter your major—we just want to help the planet together.”

—Liz Myers, civil engineering senior and member of the American Association for Environmental Engineers (AAEE), a newer group that’s aimed at uniting students toward sustainability

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Student feature

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Recent graduate Keith Neely with a spinning flower.

Photo courtesy of Patty Mitchell, BFA ’87, MFA ’91

Mechanical engineering seniors spin engineering into art Mechanical engineering senior capstone course students created an art installation at beloved local landmark Passion Works, a center— and storefront—for local artists with developmental disabilities.

The team crafted up an interactive display of the studio’s signature “Passion Flower,” the official flower of the city of Athens, while also honoring the city’s biking culture. Brainchild of Mitchell Howard, BSME ’19; Keith Neely, BSME ’19; John Satterfield, BSME ’20; and Jordan Sheppard, BSME ’19; the “Spinning Flowers System” comprises six brightly colored, metal flowers that visitors can spin simultaneously by cranking a bike pedal. —Baylee Demuth “Building an art installation like this is something we’ve been dreaming about.” —Patty Mitchell, Passion Works Founder and CEO

Our culture

Learning the Ropes Each fall, budding engineers and technologists use their newfound skills to carry out mock disaster rescues as part of a demo day to engage them with their learning. The semester-long “Engineering and Technology Overview” course, or ET 2800, gives undecided and pre-engineering majors a high-level view of engineering fields, history, and moral and ethical issues to help them explore different majors. At demo day, students work in small teams to budget, build a bridge to reach victims of a chemical fire, program a remote-controlled car, and pass other tests before they submit to a debrief about their work.

—Colleen Carow

Creators of Good: NAE and OHIO award 10th Russ Prize The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and Ohio University honored the creators of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), the non-surgical procedure formerly known as angioplasty with a stent, with the 2019 Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize.

Julio C. Palmaz of Napa, California; Leonard Pinchuk Miami, Florida; Richard A. Schatz of La Jolla, California; John B. Simpson of Woodside, California; and Paul G. Yock of Stanford, California; received the world’s top bioengineering award at an NAE gala in Washington, D.C. A minimally-invasive procedure, PCI can replace or significantly delay the need for open heart coronary bypass surgery. The procedure increases blood flow, alleviating heart-related chest pain and increasing patient comfort. Thanks to PCI, tens of millions of patients across the world lead more active lives.

Russ College alumnus and esteemed engineer Fritz Russ, BSEE ’42, HON ’75, and his wife, Dolores, created the $500,000 biennial Russ Prize in 1999 to recognize an international bioengineering achievement that has vastly improved the human condition.

Modeled after the Nobel Prize, the award has honored the innovators behind kidney dialysis, the cochlear implant, the automated DNA sequencer, the mass production of antibiotics, and LASIK and PRK eye surgeries, among other technologies.

First-year students learn to collaborate at ET 2800’s demo day in the fall.

Our culture

All five 2019 recipients visited campus and presented Russ College Stocker Lectures this academic year. To learn more, visit www.ohio.edu/ engineering/russ-prize —Colleen Carow

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Together, we do much “We’ve worked with OHIO students over twelve years.

Each year, the group has changed the lives of individuals we serve.”

—SW Resources Production Manager Robin Graham

Mechanical engineering seniors won third place in last summer’s national SourceAmerica Design Challenge in Washington, D.C., in which students improve the working environments of people with disabilities. As part of their “Designing to Make a Difference” senior capstone course, they developed a device that enables SW Resources employees with limited dexterity or cognitive abilities to more easily open and close zipper bags.

The Russ College Robotics Team took second place in the design, electronics, and control categories at the Association of Technology, Management, and Applied Engineering (ATMAE) Annual Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, this November.

Engineering Technology and Management senior Cole Stephan also won best poster. Earlier in 2019, he snagged a select national scholarship from ATMAE’s Manufacturing Division.

SOLO STRIDES Dillon Mahr (LEFT), an electrical engineering junior, was named one of just 360 Stanford University Innovation Fellows in the nation.

He joins previous Russ College fellows Andrew Stroud, BSME ’19; Ben Scott, BSETM ’18; and Faith Voinovich, BSCHE ’19.

Fazlollah Madani Sani, a chemical engineering graduate student who performs research at the Institute for Corrosion and Multiphase Technology, will receive the NACE Outstanding Student Award at the Corrosion 2020 conference in March.

Photo by Ben Wirtz Siegel, BSVC ’02

Student achievements

The eighteen-member Russ College Human Powered Vehicle Team outpaced almost 50 other universities last April at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ 2019 Human Powered Vehicle Challenge North E-Fest in East Lansing, Michigan, earning first place overall, and also in design.

Student achievements

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Photo by Ben Wirtz Siegel, BSVC ’02

On deck:

WILL COAL REPRISE ITS ROLE IN BACKYARD BARBEQUES? The global plastic composite market is booming: Studies show it could reach $8.76 billion by 2023. Russ Professor of Mechanical Engineering Jason Trembly has developed a coal composite manufacturing process that could help generate an initial new U.S. coal demand market of more than 3 million tons annually, along with new manufacturing jobs.

The U.S. Department of Energy awarded $1.5 million to Trembly and his team at the Russ College’s Institute for Sustainable Energy and the Environment, so he can scale the research and assess commercialization opportunities. Industry partners pitched in an additional $500,000.

Trembly’s process to manufacture composite decking boards from coal requires less energy—and results in lower costs and emissions—than that of commercial wood plastic composites. Also more affordable to consumers, the materials provide a new, sustainable way of using coal while meeting all applicable ASTM and International Building Code specifications.

“This project is an excellent example of OHIO’s innovative cross-cutting research programming and the university’s leadership in national sustainability initiatives,” Trembly says.

The project is a collaboration with CONSOL Energy, Engineered Profiles, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Clear Skies Consulting.

—Colleen Carow and Marissa McDaid

Research feature

Full-scale plant to support pollution-topaint process An acid mine drainage (AMD) water treatment pilot-scale plant is moving toward full scale, thanks to a $3.5 million award from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement. Professor of Civil Engineering Guy Riefler’s partnership with Professor of Art John Sabraw and Rural Action led to the pilot plant in Corning, Ohio, and transforming iron from AMD into marketable paint pigments. The group aims to create economic opportunities via jobs in small communities affected by AMD, and promote replication of the technology across central Appalachia. —Marissa McDaid

Federal project takes on transportation tech The Russ College will help develop and deploy automated transportation solutions for Ohio’s rural roads and highways as part of DriveOhio, an Ohio Department of Transportation initiative to promote automated and connected vehicle technologies. The project is funded by a $7.5 million U.S. Department of Transportation award to state industry, academia, and community partners. The team will analyze road and environmental sensor data from autonomous vehicles in rural areas that lack the high speed data connections, automated traffic control systems, and other infrastructure typically associated with these technologies—then recommend how to improve the technology and influence policy. Total investment in Ohio will be $17.8 million. —Colleen Carow

Research highlights

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The whole package Associate professor merges research and student mentorship

Faculty profile

FACULTY NEWS Khairul Alam, Moss Professor of Mechanical Engineering, inducted to the inaugural class of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) senior members

When she’s not doing cutting-edge research on how cancer cells move through the body, Associate Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Monica Burdick is helping students become meta-engineers.

Chris Bartone, Ph.D. ’88, Professor of Electrical Engineering and computer science, named fellow of the Institute of Navigation (ION) and awarded the Captain P.V.H. Weems lifetime achievement award

For Burdick, research and teaching go hand in hand. She brings the lab to the classroom, and the classroom to the lab, drawing from translational research techniques while guiding young researchers to discover all they are.

“One of the most important lessons is to remember to stay open—mind, eyes, and ears,” she tells her students. “It may seem a trite and obvious complement to our need to train engineers to think and evaluate systems critically. However, the power of open observation paired to open analysis is often forgotten when trainees get so intensely focused on finishing that one homework set or experiment.”

Outside the lab, Burdick encourages students to take the lead. Her mentees include 2019 Goldwater Scholar Mahmoud Ramadan; 2018 Goldwater Scholar Quinn Mitchell, BSME ’19; and 2017 honorable mention Bert Neyhouse, BSCHE ’18.

Students inspired her to co-found Eats with Engineers, an organization that sparks conversation between engineers and non-engineers by uniting them under a shared love of food.

Timothy “T.J.” Cyders, BSME ’06, MS ’08, PHD ’12, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, named one of four Ohio University Professors “Dr. Cyders knows how to get the best out of each student, individualizing his teaching style to our needs. Beyond the classroom, he would give us one-on-one help 25 hours a day if he could.”

—Jelena Mrvos, BSME ’19, master’s student

Amir Farnoud, Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, received the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum (NSEF) Young Investigator Award Sang-Soo Kim, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, Asphalt Binder Cracking Device (ABCD) adopted by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) as a regular specification

Burdick also advises OHIO’s student chapter of Tau Beta Pi, the oldest engineering honor society in the U.S. The OHIO Delta chapter co-hosted the national convention in Columbus, Ohio, this past fall.

Marc Singer, PHD ’13, Associate Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, received NACE International’s H.H. Uhlig Award as a postsecondary educator who inspires and excites students with innovative teaching in corrosion

“A lot of really great things start at the grassroots level,” she says. “Helping a student organization committed to making the college a better community feels right.” —Bennett Leckrone

Dušan Šormaz and Gürsel Süer, Professors of Industrial and Systems Engineering, named to International Foundation for Production Research (IFPR) board

Faculty profile

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Passion & Purpose From the Navy to the Army, the 1940s to the 2000s, two Russ College alumni with Ohio ties have served their nation and engineering fields while supporting their Bobcat family and giving back in the true spirit of “create for good.”

Paul Batchelder, BSEE ’50, grew up in Athens and reported to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station the day after high school graduation, working during World War II as a radio technician responsible for servicing radar gear.

Mark Arnold, BSISE ’82, OHIO’s most recent Alumnus of the Year (see p. 14), was reading international affairs

by age seven in his bedroom in Columbus, Ohio. He’d be recruited to OHIO by the late Ret. Brig. General James Abraham, BSEE ’43, BSIE ’48. Arnold, now a retired brigadier general himself, served multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, and continued his military career while eventually becoming CEO of a global company.

Arnold with his Alumnus of the Year award, along with (L to R): OHIO Alumni Association Executive Director Erin Essak Kopp; President M. Duane Nellis; Association Board President Casey Christopher, BS ’02; and Association Board Member Kyle Triplett, BA ’12, MBA ’17.

Alumni feature

Arnold’s father and uncles had been drafted into the Army, and his grandfather saw combat in World War I. “As I grew up, I admired the unity and sense of belonging to a respected and unique institution that was the military,” says Arnold.

He’d eventually be selected for Special Forces, or Green Berets, leading a task force of special operations units from coalition allies in Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks. Later, he volunteered for the special operations task force assigned the invasion of Iraq; its following mission was to seek out the individuals on the “most-wanted playing cards.” That force succeeded in capturing terrorist Abu Abbas, the mastermind of the Achille Lauro cruise ship hijacking and murders.

Arnold’s passion for engineering was just as intense, thanks to his father arranging factory tours on every family vacation.

“It took little research to discover that an engineering degree was the best entry card to earn a spot in a large manufacturing company,” Arnold says.

He credits his wife, Karin, with enabling his simultaneous military accomplishments and those of being CEO of multinational manufacturing company GSE Environmental, which he led to record profits and took public. They have two children, one who is a Bobcat. Eric, BSME ’15, is a project engineer at Marathon Petroleum.

Batchelder and his wife, Barbara Hope of the Hope dairy family from Athens, also have a Bobcat among their brood of four: Paul, BSME ’74, MS ’75. The now-retired elder Batchelder credits OHIO with enabling him to design electric rates for the entire Ohio power system, and with other career achievements.

“My engineering background, coupled with an MBA, enabled me to serve as an expert witness

The Batchelders at the grand opening of the Academic & Research Center in May 2010, with a project team room they helped fund.

for Ohio Power Co. in rate cases before the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio,” he notes.

His engineering experience has served him while rebuilding homes after tornados in Oklahoma and Alabama, and on Habitat for Humanity projects in Canton, Ohio, and Thailand.

Arnold completed the Ohio Fire Academy’s EMT course simply to gain some life skills and now serves as a part-time tech in Knox County.

And, once Bobcats, always Bobcats: They’ve also both made charitable gifts benefiting OHIO students. The Batchelders have supported scholarships and the construction of the Academic & Research Center. The Arnolds have also supported scholarships, and more recently, planned a leadership gift to the Russ College dean’s discretionary fund.

For Batchelder, it’s just the right thing to do.

“My experience at Ohio University prepared me both academically and socially for a rewarding career, even from a humble beginning,” he says.

“I feel I should help other people have the same opportunity I was given, and I want to say thank you for the experience.” —Colleen Carow

Alumni feature

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ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENTS Russ College alumni advise Ohio University Foundation Board The Ohio University Foundation Board of Trustees elected Mark Arnold, BSISE ’82; Cynthia C. Calhoun, BSEE ’88; and Richard “Dick” Dickerson, BSCE ’80; to its membership.

Former Ambassador wins federal $750,000 career grant Former Engineering Ambassador and Cutler Scholar Elizabeth

J. Biddinger, BSCHE ’05, an associate professor at the City College of New York, received one of just 84 early career awards from the U.S. Department of Energy for her research on biomass electroreduction.

Happy Homecoming At the Homecoming Gala in October, the Ohio University Alumni Association honored Retired Brig. Gen. Mark C. Arnold, BSISE ’82, as OHIO’s 2019 Alumnus of the Year; and awarded Emmett Boyle, MS ’70, the Medal of Merit. Arnold was

honored as a “decorated patriot, accomplished business leader and unwavering bobcat,” and Boyle as an “engineering and executive extraordinaire.” Read more about Arnold on p. 12.

Premier aviation association names top grad student Pengfei “Phil” Duan, Ph.D. ’19, M.S. ’11, won the RTCA William E. Jackson Award, given annually to an outstanding graduate student in aviation electronics and telecommunications. He’s the seventeenth OHIO recipient in the award’s 42-year history.

Brandon Mahr, BSETM ’19, patented a transport assembly during his internship at Toyota’s Buffalo, West Virginia, plant. The invention, which helps prevent engine part drops, eliminating the need for new assembly line carts. Toyota employs the device at multiple U.S. plants. Mahr is currently on the engineering staff at Honda in Anna, Ohio. His brother, Dillon, is an electrical engineering junior (see p. 6).

Alumni achievements

Leaving a Legacy What do you get for serving seventeen years as dean? To honor nowDean Emeritus Irwin, who retired in June, the Russ College Board of Visitors created the Dean Dennis Irwin Legacy-Russ Vision Scholarship.

“Seldom, if ever, does engineering leadership in higher education understand and perform as a professional business manager,” says former Board Chair Emmett Boyle, MSISE ’70. “I saw firsthand that he was indeed a manager, and a very good manager. And a fine engineer.”

Your contribution will be doubled thanks to matches from The OHIO Match™ and the Russ gift endowment. To make a gift, visit engage.ohio.edu/russ or contact Director of Development Tanyah Stone at stonet@ohio.edu or 740.593.9301.

Alumni achievements

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Firstclass flight Rosie the Riveter had a partner in crime: Joan Mace, AAS ’73, BGS ’78. Mace began her aviation career in 1942, building Helldiver aircraft for the Navy during World War II. She landed at the OHIO airport in 1946 for a flight instructor job and took an academic position in the flight instruction program seventeen

years later, eventually becoming the first woman to chair the Department of Aviation.

“Her flight training kept me alive on occasions when I had no right,” says former flight student Bill Beam, PHD ’66, who eventually worked for the FAA as a flight service specialist in the arctic.

Mace, who is a member of the National Association of Flight Instructors Hall of Fame, brought students the Francis Fuller Student Aviation Flight Training Center, United Airlines’ internship program, and a new chapter of the national

honorary aviation fraternity.

The Joan Mace Russ Vision Aviation Scholarship honors her leadership and advocacy of student aviators who learn to spread their wings at OHIO so they can soar far further.

Want to help students connect, engage, and inspire? Make a charitable gift to the Russ Vision Fund. Your contribution will be doubled thanks to matches from The OHIO Match™ and the Russ gift endowment. To make a gift, visit engage.ohio. edu/russ/, or contact Director of Development Tanyah Stone at stonet@ohio.edu or 740.593.9301. —Colleen Carow

Photo by Rick Fatica, MFA ’08

Create for the future

COAST TO COAST Computer science senior to take Amazon internships full time Logan Wielkiewicz spent a couple summers roving between coasts to intern at Amazon. Come Commencement, he’ll land in Seattle for a job on the web services team.

He worked in Boston prior to junior year with the Echo smart speaker group that’s responsible for the device’s speech recognition engine. There, he managed his own project, which he says was really the first easy way to visualize how Echo processes speech so it’s easier for humans to see, understand, then further debug.

Last summer took him to Amazon’s Seattle offices to work on the cloud computing platform.

“I think I always grew up with some sort of connection to computers,” Wielkiewicz says.

“My house had a computer my whole life, and I was encouraged to use it all throughout my childhood.”

In the meantime, he’s helping his senior capstone course team enter their robot in this May’s University Rover Challenge at the Mars Society’s Mars Desert Research Station near Hanksville, Utah. He had pitched the project to his faculty, who adopted it as one of the course projects.

“Robotics interests me because of how open ended it is. Really, the sky is the limit,” he says.

—Colleen Carow

Internship profile

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