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inter 2020 new
UMass Dartmouth College of Engineering
Winter 2020 News
Experiences in Engineering What an exciting and heartwarming first year it has been for me as Dean of the College of Engineering. I learned our students are remarkably ambitious and, as you will read, take advantage of the many great opportunities available on our campus including research, community service and entrepreneurship. I feel proud to be Dean of a College that serves students like ours. Developing partnerships with educational, government and industrial partners to increase student access to experiential learning and attaining an engineering degree was an important effort in my first year at UMass Dartmouth. Partnerships include a three-year engineering degree, undergraduate and graduate cybersecurity training and workforce development, and industry and community stakeholder-sponsored capstone design projects. Additional details are included in this newsletter.
Contents Notable Facts 3 Target Hackathon
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Learning to lead
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Engineering students on the frontline 8 Capstone with community impact
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Alumni profile 12 Nobel Laureate Rainer Weiss 13 Accelerated engineering degree
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Capstone project sponsors
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Photo credits Tailyn Clark Kindra Clineff Karl Christoff Dominey Debbie Gustafson image courtesy of Energetiq Daniel Ye
Writing Mary Hensel
Design Kevin DeAquair
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Winter 2020 news
Renovations that improve the student experience and support new research were also completed in my first year. The Software Studio Laboratory (SENG 222) boosts hands-on learning of hardware construction and software analysis using new custombuilt, state-of-the-art computers. Spaces in DION have been redesigned to house the new Computer Science Teaching and Learning Laboratory and advance research efforts in cybersecurity and bioinformatics. We also pledged to increase diversity and inclusion in engineering. As a result, the American Society of Engineering Education selected our College of Engineering as an “exemplar� recipient of a Bronze Award in the inaugural year of the ASEE Diversity Recognition Program. Our efforts will impact not only UMass Dartmouth but also the science and technology workforce of our region. This academic year builds on the momentum of the last year. This fall we welcomed eight new faculty and over 300 new students who are eager to address 21st-century technological challenges, improve the well-being of society and create new knowledge in engineering, technology, and computer science. I look forward to working with you on continued support of our mission.
Notable Facts
17:1 Undergrad to faculty ratio
> $59,800 entry-level salary for more than 2/3 of employed undergraduates within 5 months of graduation
$2.5M
in endowed scholarships
#5 for percentage of women tenured/tenure-track faculty among nationally-ranked U.S. engineering colleges with a PhD program
94%
Undergraduates employed or pursuing advanced education within 5 months of graduation
#1
for social mobility among nationally-ranked engineering colleges in New England
> $110 undergraduates employed in college for teaching and research missions
$16M
current research awards
October 2019 COE data: student/faculty ratio; research awards; scholarships; student hires Based on October 2019 survey of 2019 graduates / job placement and salary data US News and World Report, https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/social mobility ASEE 2019, US News and World Report https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities women faculty members
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COE design teams take top awards at Target’s Sleepwear Safety & Design Hackathon The Challenge Spark innovation to remove hazardous chemicals from children’s pjs.
The Competition 6 student teams, 24 hours, Target HQ, Minneapolis, MN
The Winners First Place: UMass Dartmouth Second Place: UMass Dartmouth
Two teams of Engineering students placed first and second in a national competition to create safer alternatives to hazardous flame retardants used in children’s sleepwear. Working on a real-world problem under a tight time frame, team members used biomimicry and natural marine resources to create an alternative adhesive. Their novel solutions had to meet manufacturers’ quality and aesthetic requirements as well as regulatory standards for flammability.
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Team advisor Tracie Ferreira, Associate Professor of Bioengineering, has explored ways to make polyester more flame-retardant using eco-friendly, natural nano-particles. She recruited UMass Dartmouth student volunteers for the first-time event and was thrilled when UMass Dartmouth teams prevailed against students from well-known textiles programs at North Carolina State University and St. Catherine University in Minnesota. The winning team connected bioengineering knowledge of natural nano-materials to the process of thread-coating for safer fibers. They turned to marine sources for the fire-retardant adhesive and took a crash course in thread coating from Chancellor Professor Yong Kim. Target awarded the team a $2,500 cash prize plus a $15,000 grant to further develop the concept. On the winning team: Anna Church ’20 (Peabody, MA), Alec DaSilva ’22 (Dartmouth, MA),
Receiving praise from the judges was a dream. They loved that we had not only done our research on the compound but also had looked into the logistics of creating it in mass scale.”
Antonio Olivieri ’20 (Shrewsbury, MA), Ian Sullivan ’22 (Rehoboth, MA), and UMass Dartmouth students also took second place in the competition with a proposal to use a natural protein to make fibers flame-retardant. Those team members: Dylan Bryda ’20 (Falmouth,
Anna Church ‘20 Bioengineering Major
MA), Quinn Kennedy ’20 (Holden, MA), Jonathan Lake ’21 (Blackstone, MA), Alexis Lannigan ’21 (Swansea, MA), and Ian Smiley ’20 (Rehoboth, MA), all bioengineering majors.
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Learning to Lead:
Civil Engineer Nneoma Ugwu After topping her graduating class in Civil Engineering with demonstrated research and service expertise, Nneoma Ugwu gave the commencement address to fellow undergraduates in the Colleges of Engineering and Arts and Sciences. Using metaphors from her studies in transportation engineering she encouraged her classmates, saying “You can do this”, despite bumpy roads, u-turns and changes in direction. Giving shout outs to the student groups of SAIL, Unity House, the Library team, Tripp Athletic Center and the Dining staff, Ugwu pointed to the many facets of life as a UMass Dartmouth undergraduate.
Ugwu’s experience shows how much is available to an
Along with leadership roles in the African Students
aspiring engineer at UMass Dartmouth. She served as
Association and the National Society of Black Engineers,
project manager for her senior civil engineering project,
Ugwu served as Vice President of UMass Dartmouth’s
a redesign of the congested Mashpee Rotary on the
Engineers Without Borders, volunteering in Panama on
southeast coast of Cape Cod. She assisted STEM Ed
an aqueduct project that provided water to over 300
faculty member Shakhnoza Kayumova in her NSF-
residents in Valle Las Perlas. As a beauty and style vlogger
sponsored research with ESOL students in Fall River and
she reaches more than 1,000 viewers on three conti-
New Bedford. Ugwu worked at PJ Keating, a hot-mix
nents. “I like to encourage the feminine side of being a
asphalt manufacturer in Acushnet, MA., as a quality
female engineer. It’s my way of expressing myself and
control intern and also alongside a project manager
my way of putting my opinions out there,” she said.
responsible for repaving the runways at New Bedford Airport.
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Winter 2020 news
‘19
In Nigeria, we have deteriorating roads, traffic congestion, and no roads in some cases. I want to impact change through roads and transportation.” Nneoma Ugwu ’19 Civil Engineering
Now a PhD student at University of Maryland, Ugwu plans to return to her home country of Nigeria “to give back and make changes there in public projects, building schools, anything I can do to give back to the community.”
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Engineering students on the front line of systems security Computer Science and Electrical & Computer Engineering students benefit from Lance Fiondella’s array of research awards Lance Fiondella’s three software-intensive research projects keep sixteen graduate and undergraduate students working at a steady clip. Because the Associate Professor of Electrical and Computing Engineering is supported by a wide variety of sponsors interested in maintaining safe and resilient systems, he can offer students a range of research, internship, and employment opportunities. A prolific researcher and writer, Fiondella has won $1.5 million in research funding from the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Department of Homeland Security, the Army Research Laboratory, and Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). His 120 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers are testimony to his research productivity.
Dr. Fiondella’s principal project, funded by a $450,000 NSF CAREER award, will develop an open source tool to allow software engineers to automatically apply software reliability models, so applications they develop can operate free of failures and can be completed on time and within budget. Beyond reliability are further concerns of security to detect malware, electronic theft, and fraud, which are growing in step with people’s dependence on software-enabled systems and services.
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Winter 2020 news
Fiondella also operates in a wider context to develop an open source software platform to promote collaboration within the global software reliability research community as well as to communicate cutting edge techniques to software practitioners. The goal is a common platform, where participants can implement results, hybridize modeling, and conduct algorithmic research.
Dr. Fiondella’s mentorship opened my eyes that I could achieve anything. His commitment to students and technical rigor shined through while co-authoring a paper to present my undergraduate research at a Homeland Security conference my junior year. His diverse network provides students with countless valuable internship opportunities.” Christian Ellis ‘19 Computer Science
To be sure his tools are relevant, Fiondella has worked as a Visiting Researcher at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD and as a Summer Faculty Fellow in the Office of Naval Research in the Reliability and Maintainability Division at NAVAIR. Fiondella never waits for an agency to put out a request for proposals. “I regularly engage with government and industry stakeholders to ensure my research is relevant to national needs.” Whenever possible, Fiondella brings his students with him to mentor them on research development. “When there is a demand for solutions, I can’t complete research projects quickly enough unless I engage well-prepared students.”
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Smoothing out the Red Line:
Capstone with community “Has anybody here ever ridden the Red Line? And had a smooth, comfortable ride?” So begins a senior capstone presentation in Mechanical Engineering, the culmination of a year’s worth of work for a real client, on a real problem, offering a real solution. The problem starts with a bumpy ride, caused by uneven-
placement, safety, transmission length and wireless data
ness in the road bed of the Boston’s Red Line track,
capture. In addition, team members had to consider
ridden by over a quarter of a million people daily. As well
cost, replication and data collection. As they met and
as causing passenger discomfort, a bumpy ride means
overcame challenges, they had to manage a shifting
higher wear and tear on cars, lessening their useful
project schedule.
lives. Four Mechanical Engineering students worked for the MBTA to design and build a sensor to record these bumps in real time, as the trains are running, to determine exactly where maintenance is needed first.
from scratch was the best solution to meet the project requirements. Options were raised, considered, tested, rejected or refined. For the sensor circuitry the team
Like most capstone projects, this involved a multi-step
had to dive into electrical engineering. The housing unit
process with research, design, materials choice, fabri-
went through 8 design changes as 3-D printing revealed
cation, and testing. Team members had to work within
correctable flaws.
project constraints including technical limits on size,
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The team’s research concluded that building a sensor
Winter 2020 news
As time grew short, dynamic testing on Lucy Little Road, Dartmouth substituted for a run over the Red Line track with the sensor measuring and communicating well. The team came in an astounding 93% under budget producing a sensor with a cost just over $50, a quarter of the cheapest commercial version (which did not meet the client specifications). As the project neared completion, the team recommended additional design changes such as adding GPS location data and further stabilizing the sensor in its housing. Next steps are for the MBTA to test the sensor on the Red Line itself.
impact Bluetooth
Capacitor
Arduino Nano
Being Mechanicals, once we
Battery Connection Switch Assembly
were able to hold something physical, we really got to see the light at the end of the
Accelerometer
Resistors
tunnel. We started putting in a ton of hours, coming in early and staying late because
Perfboard Final Sensor Design
we wanted to make sure we saw this project to the end
The Red Line Capstone team is Edward del’Etoile, Kelly Merlo, Nathan Morgado and Michael Sereti. Arghavan Louhghalam,
and met our deadline.”
Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, served as project advisor. MBTA clients were Electrical Engineer Michael Walsh and Mechanical Engineer Scott Manning.
Edward del’Etoile ‘19 Mechanical Engineering
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Debbie Gustafson, CEO Energetiq World traveler, high stakes negotiator, known as a trailblazing executive and clairvoyant marketer, Debbie Gustafson, MNE ’86, has packed a wide range of experience into a stellar career. CEO of Wilmington-based Energetiq (pronounced energetic) since 2016, Gustafson joined the College’s Industry Advisory Council last spring. Its members keep the College on the cutting edge of engineering practice. Energetiq makes advanced light sources used in semiconductor manufacturing and in analytic instruments for life sciences research. Energetiq’s founders recruited Gustafson to the start-up in 2005, but Gustafson began as a steel-toed-boots -on-the-ground field service engineer, installing HVAC controls at sites across the nation. She earned an MBA from Bentley and moved from operations into engineering sales, marketing and strategic planning. As one of three female students in a class of 35 with all male professors, Gustafson arrived expecting equal treatment in school and in industry. “That was the biggest mistake of my life” she laughs. Now she works to educate industry participants about unconscious bias. “As CEO, it’s great to be able to set directions
“We still need trailblazers, someone to take the risk and make the change.”
and promote diversity. At Energetiq, we use case studies and everyone in the room realizes that without meaning to they can create bias – like referring to ‘the new girl’ or addressing ‘Dear Sirs’ instead of ‘Dear All’. Globally, there is increasing awareness and it’s getting better.” Growing up on Cape Cod, Debbie picked the College for mechanical engineering. As she tells it, “I always loved working with my hands in small engine repair and wood shop, even though I was the only girl in the class. My first choice was to pursue musical theater on Broadway, but the thought of waiting tables while seeking a big break wasn’t appealing and my second choice was to design cars.” Although she majored in mechanical engineering, Debbie found life-long friends in her roommates studying business and arts. Her advice for students? “Find a mentor to support you when you are stressed, build a network to uncover opportunities, strive to maintain a balance between work and life outside your job, and know that while it’s hard to be a trailblazer, it’s fun and rewarding.”
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Winter 2020 news
lumni Profile
Alumni profile:
UMass Dartmouth hosts
Nobel Laureate Rainer Weiss MIT Professor Emeritus Rainer Weiss won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2017, along with Kip Thorne and Barry Barish of the California Institute of Technology, for “decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observations of gravitational waves.” The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, better known as LIGO, is a dual site, $1 billion research tool for detecting gravitational waves predicted by Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. Weiss was on campus for the 22nd Eastern Gravity Meeting of the American Physical Society, a regional meet-up open to researchers of all levels, from undergraduate students to faculty in all areas of gravitational physics, including classical, quantum, theory, observation, and computation. Weiss told the story of the difficult,100-year search to observe the gravitational waves described by Einstein’s general theory of relativity, offered a vision for the future of astronomy and emphasized how important the role of science is for human progress. This year’s meeting was organized by members of the Center for Scientific Computing and Visualization Research includingPhysics faculty members, Gaurav Khanna and Robert Fisher and Richard Price. Khanna’s Master’s students participate in his research on binary black hole systems using sophisticated computer modeling relevant to ongoing LIGO research.
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To be able to acquire a bachelor’s degree in UMass Dartmouth, Bristol Community College, and Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School have launched
engineering in only three years will be a benefit to
the College Access Pathway (CAP) in
students, parents and
Engineering to allow students to
the community.”
work toward a college degree while simultaneously completing their high school graduation requirements.
Elvio Ferreira, Ed.D Assistant Superintendent/Principal Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School
Diman, BCC and COE
create three-year accelerated engineering degree By completing the College Access Pathway (CAP), following their traditional 4-year high school education, students can earn their bachelor’s degree in engineering in only three additional years. Students who complete their Bachelor’s in three years will save nearly $23,000 on the cost of their education. As a bridge to the three-year program, Diman students can take college-level courses at Bristol Community College during their junior and senior high school years. These course will seamlessly transfer to UMass Dartmouth for a Bachelor of Science Degree in Engineering.
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Winter 2020 news
Special thanks to our 2018-2019
hank you
capstone project sponsors • Catlow • KVH Industries • Ocean Spray • CPS Technologies • Fabreeka International • FM Global • MBTA • Goddard Tech • Lockheed Martin • Nye Lubricant • Softub • Activ Surgical • General Dynamics • Btech Acoustics, LLC • Biosurfaces • Woundcheck • Tegra Medical • Joseph Abboud Manufacturing • Barry Industries • Boston Engineering • Marilee Driscol Company
To learn more... umassd.edu/engineering or call 508.999.8539
umassd.edu/engineering
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