Universit y of Ver mont
FALL 2014
SUMMIT COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES
TRANSFORMING STEM AT UVM A $104 million capital building project will transform the heart of UVM’s campus with 250,000 square feet of space devoted to the STEM fields. SUMMIT |
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THE DEAN’S VIEW Dear Alumni and Friends of CEMS, It has been a little over a year since I joined UVM and CEMS, and what an incredible experience it has been. I am very proud to share some highlights, as well as to provide a glimpse of the exciting opportunities that lie ahead. In the spring edition of SUMMIT, I shared the exceptional news about the university’s plan for a new STEM building complex. Much has been accomplished in the planning for this new project, and in this issue of SUMMIT we’re pleased to feature an in-depth look at this transformational opportunity for CEMS. Last year was highly productive, thanks to our outstanding faculty, staff and students. This new academic year promises to be better yet. We are starting the year with a record number of students – more than 1,125 – enrolled at CEMS, representing a 12% increase from last fall. In 2013-14, we had our strongest year for new research awards, a powerful indicator of the quality of our faculty. Some of our other accomplishments include: • CEMS hired five new tenure-track faculty members and one new lecturer, who all started teaching this fall. (This edition features them in our “New Faculty Spotlight” section.) • Thanks to the generosity of two alumni, the college is conducting an internal search for the Fisher Professor in Electrical Engineering and has named Josh Bongard the Veinott Green and Gold Professorship in Computer Science. • CEMS was awarded a $2.75 million four-year Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant from the Department of Labor. The grant, with a focus on career training in the STEM fields, will allow the college to develop new training and outreach programs. We have hired Shalini Suryanarayana as TAACCCT program director. • We hired a number of new support personnel including: Jenn Karson to lead our communications efforts; Genevieve Anthony and Matt Manz as Enrollment Management Professionals, to work in our Office of Student Services; Max Graves as a new lab manager for the School of Engineering; and Alicia Ellis as our internship coordinator. Alicia joined us part-time starting in late July and will transition to full time in January. I have had the opportunity to visit with a number of you and I am grateful for the support of alumni, parents and friends during the past year. Your generosity allows us to continue the vital mission of educating the next generation of engineers and scientists. I hope that you find this newsletter informative and that it provides a means for us to keep connected. In future issues we hope to highlight more alumni, so please share updates. Sincerely,
Luis Garcia Dean, College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences CEMS | College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences 2 2 | SUMMIT
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING & MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES
SUMMIT EDITOR: Aimee Picchi ART DIRECTION: Jenn Karson CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Josh Brown, Kimberly MacQueen PHOTOGRAPHY/IMAGES: AAUsatlab, Michael J Bennett, Josh Brown, Ellenzweig, Joe Foster, Scott Hamshaw, Sally McCay, Charley Thompson SUMMIT IS PUBLISHED TWICE A YEAR BY THE DEAN’S OFFICE AT THE COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES SEND LETTERS AND ALUMNI NEWS TO: summit@uvm.edu
CONTENTS ON THE COVER
TRANSFORMING STEM AT UVM UVM’s largest capital building project represents a major investment in CEMS and a new vision for how students and faculty engage in the STEM fields.
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FEATURES 13 LOOKING TO THE STARS
18 CHANGING THE PARADIGM
For more than two decades, NASA’s Space Grant Program has given liftoff to innovations from Vermont scientists.
16 THE POWER OF A SURFBOARD
The Vermont Mathematics Initiative is transforming the state’s K-12 math teachers.
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ITS A FAB LAB WORLD CEMS’ Fab Lab is taking a leaf from the Maker movement, exploring art and technology.
How one CEMS graduate, inspired by Engineers Without Borders, is helping a rural Costa Rican village.
WEBSITE: cems.uvm.edu
COVER IMAGE, IMAGE RIGHT: The new STEM complex will result in a dramatic change to the way the campus looks, replacing outmoded 1960s-era structures with two new campus buildings, as well as undertaking an extensive renovation to Votey Hall. Rendering by Ellenzweig.
FALL 2014
DEPARTMENTS
Q&A
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BY THE NUMBERS
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DISCOVER CEMS
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NEW FACULTY SPOTLIGHT
NEW CONNECTIONS Jeff Buzas, the new chair of CEMS’ Department of Mathematics & Statistics, on his vision for the department.
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BY THE NUMBERS
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SURFBOARDS
That’s how many surfboards will be made by youths in the Costa Rican village of Venado, where CEMS graduate Tammy Stone and her Clara Vista Foundation are working with residents to create new economic opportunities. Her Surf Mentor program will teach underprivileged youths how to construct surfboards, giving them the skills to create their own surfboard repair shop.
Photo by Joe Foster
250,000
SQUARE FEET
The total new and renovated space that will be created by UVM’s STEM capital improvement project, the largest ever undertaken by the university. The project includes two new buildings with more than 180,000 square-feet of space, and an overhaul for Votey Hall, which will create an intellectual “spine” on the campus.
10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm
400 TEACHERS 15 YEARS In 15 years, 400 teachers representing 90 percent of Vermont’s school districts have trained with the Vermont Mathematics Initiative, a partnership between UVM, the state’s school districts and Department of Education. The program helps K-12 teachers to develop and reinforce their math teaching abilities, embodying the program’s philosophy that “confidence builds competence.”
The dimensions of the Vermont Lunar Cube, a miniature satellite also known as a CubeSat. Funded by NASA, the CubeSat program involved CEMS students and faculty working on a project from Vermont Technical College. For more than 20 years, CEMS scientists and students have produced projects and designs to further space exploration, thanks to NASA’s Space Grant program.
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fff fff “ the lovesong OF fff fff r. buckminster fuller” by sam green fff fff fff fff yo la tengo fff fff fff fff fff fff C O -PRE S E NT ED B Y T H E F LYN N C E N T E R , U VM L AN E S E R IE S , & U VM COLLEGE OF ENGINEE R ING AN D M AT H E M AT IC AL S C IE NCE S
a documentary film narrated onstage by the film maker with an original soundtrack performed live by
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 7:30 pm F LYNN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS MAINSTAGE [ $36/30/25 adult ] [ $32/26/21 student ]
The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller is a “live documentary” by Academy Award-nominated director SAM GREEN (The Weather Underground) featuring a live score by the legendary indie rock band YO LA TENGO. Can one person change the world? Twentieth-century futurist, architect, engineer, inventor, and author R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER (1895–1983) experimented tirelessly for 50 years trying to discover the answer. An early proponent of environmental stewardship, Fuller spoke persuasively about contemporary design and architecture’s ability to tackle issues of sustainability and conservation and to stimulate radical societal change. Green’s in-person cinematic narration draws inspiration equally from old travelogues, the Benshi tradition, and TED talks.
“… a movie being born as you see it and hear it, as alive as music.” —REBECCA SOLNIT
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A Watershed Event For CEMS doctoral student Kristen Underwood, the fast-moving waters of the High Bridge Brook carry valuable clues. She and Jordan Duffy ’15 (also pictured) last summer affixed PVC-constructed samplers to bedrock, where the devices will capture suspended sediment flowing through this Mad River tributary. Later this year, she and other students will dry out and examine the sediment, providing them with a view of what type of erosion is impacting Vermont’s Mad River watershed. “The fine sediment being carried by rivers is often associated with toxins and phosphorus, which can lead to water quality impact,” said Underwood, whose co-advisors are engineering professors Donna Rizzo and Mandar Dewoolkar. “One of the main goals is to understand where human activities may be accelerating erosion processes.”
Photo Credit: Scott Hamshaw
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NEW FACULTY SPOTLIGHT CEMS welcomes new faculty for 2014-15 Mads Almassalkhi, Electrical Engineering In 2003, the National Academy of Engineering named the electric grid the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century. But rising demands are pushing our electric infrastructure to its limit, as evidenced by increasingly widespread blackouts. Mads Almassalkhi, a new faculty member in electrical engineering, works to develop practical feedback algorithms to improve the grid’s resiliency. “We are currently investigating distributing the algorithms to better reflect market and physical conditions of the actual transmission system and looking to partner with industry and government agencies to bring our work to practice,” he reports. Almassalkhi’s work can’t come too soon. At least 50 percent of the power-engineering workforce is expected to retire in the next five to ten years. “UVM is in a great position to supply the next generation of power engineers, and I hope for my courses to motivate our students to go on to successful careers within the large umbrella that is power systems,” he says.
Appala Raju Badireddy, Civil & Environmental Engineering Future engineers who want to learn about water – all about water – have come to the right place. Appala Raju Badireddy’s courses focus on mechanistic understanding of fundamental processes related to water
supply, quality, and reuse, leveraging the principles of chemistry, biology, physics, material science, membrane science, engineering, and nanotechnology to improve existing technologies or develop sustainable, low-cost, energy-efficient approaches. His students will learn to apply important fundamental concepts and principles to design efficient treatment or remediation systems, building their data analysis and interpretation skills at the same time. Badireddy, an assistant professor of environmental engineering, says he hopes his courses generate healthy discussion on environmental topics and get students interested in careers in environmental engineering research. “When students are able to talk about environmental issues with open-mindedness, using the proper language and terminology, backed by critical thinking and problemsolving skills,” he says, “then I believe I will have achieved my goals as a teacher.”
Kevin Beard, Statistics Kevin Beard, newly on board this fall as a lecturer in the statistics program, brings 13 years experience teaching high school statistics including AP classes. That follows 12 years working in the accounting software field for companies as varied as Ford and Westinghouse down to two-person start-ups. Originally from Connecticut, Beard has a B.A. in Economics and an MBA in international finance from the University of Connecticut. Because statistics are “useful and practical,” Beard says he never hears students asking why they need to learn the subject. “Everyone should have a basic understanding of stats,” he adds. “I can honestly say that teaching has been my favorite occupation. I can’t see doing anything else.”
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Patrick Lee, Mechanical Engineering They are lightweight, multifunctional materials with a million uses: we used to call them “space-age” polymers. Mechanical engineering assistant professor Patrick Lee studies fabrication and processing of “multiphase nanostructured smart and lightweight polymeric and hybrid materials with synergistic properties” that can be used to make everything from cars to medical devices to food packaging. His work informs ongoing trends in renewable energy, sustainability, clean water, health, smart infrastructure and construction. And beginning this fall, he’ll introduce engineering undergraduates to some of the same topics through a course on advanced manufacturing processes. “My goal is to prepare students for manufacturing industries as well as for graduate research programs in advanced manufacturing areas,” says Lee, who joined CEMS after working as a research scientist at Dow Chemical. “I am excited to meet bright young future engineers and scientists at UVM!”
Huijie Lu, Civil & Environmental Engineering Research rarely gets much more important to everyday life than when it focuses on our water supply. Assistant professor Huijie Lu’s goal is to encourage students to take what they learn in the classroom and create applications that will broaden the design and control of biological treatment, with the aim of improving energy and resource sustainability. Work in her lab will tap microbiology, ecology and systems biology to investigate the structure and function of microbial communities. She says she’s excited to teach
environmental engineering courses with brand new curriculum, getting students prepared to take on undergraduate research challenges. “One of my teaching goals as an engineering professor is to make good connections between the teaching materials and real-world applications,” Lu says. “I plan to achieve this by teaching students more applied knowledge and skills, as well as some cutting-edge topics where active research is happening.”
Jennie Stephens, co-appointment with CEMS and the Rubenstein School of Environment & Natural Resources Jennie Stephens’ research is inspired by what she calls an “inevitable” shift: the movement away from fossil fuels toward renewable sources of energy. The associate professor, who holds a joint position between the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences and the university’s Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, notes that her research investigates how political, social and cultural factors are influencing energy system changes. “We know this transition is occurring,” she notes. “We just don’t yet know how fast and in what ways this transition will occur. I find it exciting to research how this transition is happening in different places.” Stephens, who is the university’s first Blittersdorf Professor of Sustainability Science and Policy and previously served as an associate professor of environmental science and policy at Clark University, says her goal is to encourage students to consider the social issues surrounding sustainability challenges facing the world. “Students are intrigued and excited to engage on issues of energy, climate change and sustainability,” she notes. ”Integrating these issues into their education is critical for them to be prepared to contribute and engage in a rapidly changing world.” u Photos by Sally McCay
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TRANSFORMIN
A $104 million capital building pro Mathematical Sciences and how th By Aimee Picchi
Scientific discovery involves refinement and rethinking, skills that are in abundant supply across the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences. Just take a stroll across the college’s buildings. In Farrell Hall, you’ll find faculty and students working on crossdisciplinary projects such as crowd-sourcing the electric grid. In Votey Hall’s Fab Lab, students are finding the sweet spot between art and technology, tapping 3D printers and laser cutters to bring their creations to life. With interdisciplinary research pushing ahead at CEMS, the University of Vermont is readying a major commitment to re-envisioning how its students and faculty engage in the so-called STEM fields, or science, technology, engineering and mathematics. During the next four years, the university will create a $104 million STEM complex to promote teaching and research within those fields, securing UVM’s reputation as a “public ivy.”
The project represents both an investment in CEMS and a reevaluation of the needs of students and faculty in the STEM fields. The university will create a new literal and figurative heart of the campus, dramatically changing its face with two new campus buildings that are designed to encourage the type of interdisciplinary efforts that are becoming the hallmark of CEMS. “Imagine teaching and learning spaces without walls, without barriers, and without limits. Highly flexible, rapidly adaptable, and infinitely reconfigurable – to accommodate changing needs, evolving priorities, and new opportunities,” Provost David Rosowsky recently told the university’s board of trustees. Under President Tom Sullivan’s leadership, creating a new STEM center for the university became a priority, and the university’s board of trustees approved the project’s $104 million budget this May. Construction will start next year,
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NG STEM AT UVM
oject will reshape the College of Engineering and e STEM fields are approached at UVM.
according to Jesse Beck, one of the architects on the project and president of Burlington-based Freeman French Freeman. About three-quarters of the project’s cost will be covered through bonding, while the university is seeking $26 million from non-debt sources, such as private gifts.
STEM Growth For CEMS, the new buildings come at a crucial juncture. President Obama has called for the nation’s colleges and universities to produce 1 million new STEM graduates over the next decade. At the same time, jobs in STEM fields are projected to grow at 1.7 times the rate as occupations outside those fields, according to the Department of Commerce. To attract those STEM-minded students and new faculty,
University of Vermont’s leaders realized its buildings needed “to be brought into the 21st century,” notes Bob Vaughan, University of Vermont’s director of capital planning and management. Two buildings from the 1960s – Cook and Angell Lecture Hall – will be torn down and replaced with two new buildings offering more than 180,000 square feet of offices, laboratories and classrooms, while Votey will undergo an extensive renovation to create more spacious, updated labs and classrooms. Aesthetically, the new buildings will connect to what Vaughan calls “the face of the university,” the late 19th century buildings that line University Place. The goal for the new complex goes far beyond ensuring UVM offers state-of-the-art STEM facilities, notes Michael Lauber, president of Boston-based architecture firm Ellenzweig, which is designing the project with local Freeman French Freeman. Because so many STEM fields SUMMIT | 11
TRANSFORMING STEM AT UVM engage in cross-pollination, the plan is to create physical spaces – like shared labs and office space – where computer science faculty can work closely with electrical engineers, for instance, or physics majors can brainstorm with mechanical engineers. In one sense, the physical design of the STEM complex will reinforce the type of cross-disciplinary research that’s already earning CEMS faculty international recognition. Take the Vermont Complex Systems Center, which has been featured by the BBC, The New York Times and CNN. The group includes computer science professor Josh Bongard; math professors Peter Dodds, Chris Danforth and James Bagrow; engineering professors Paul Hines and Yves Dubief; and Computer Science chair Maggie Eppstein. The group’s approach addresses far-ranging questions such as whether crowd-sourcing can help improve energy efficiency, and how to track the world’s collective mood with Twitter. The new STEM complex will engender that type of crossdisciplinary approach across the university, with Provost Rosowsky noting it will spur “new curricula and new programs that will inspire and engage students in all colleges – from every discipline – so that ALL of our graduates possess some understanding of engineering, technology, and the physical sciences.”
Votey’s Legacy When Votey Hall was built in 1964, engineers still worked with slide rules, and the nation’s first computer science department, created at Purdue University, was only two years old. Updating the CEMS physical plant would likely be wholeheartedly endorsed by the late Josiah William Votey, who served as the dean of UVM’s College of Engineering from 1901 through 1931, and whose legacy was celebrated
half a century ago when the university named its thennew engineering building in his honor. Votey, who himself graduated from UVM in 1884, not only educated generations of UVM scientists, but he was credited with modernizing Vermont’s roads and water systems in the early 20th century. Votey Hall was built at a time when the U.S. was expecting a surge in college enrollment, as well as a boost in interest from young men and women in science, engineering and technology jobs. Today, the STEM fields are likewise creating flourishing job opportunities. Local businesses such as Keurig Green Mountain and Dealer.com have looked to CEMS for their interns and new hires. Other CEMS graduates are finding jobs in Silicon Valley, with alumni moving to firms such as LinkedIn and Tesla Motors. Votey Hall will be “given a makeover so that it meets today’s program needs,” Vaughan notes. Some of the labs “look like they were built in 1964, which they were. We have advanced somewhat since 1964.” A skybridge will connect Votey to the new 80,000 square-foot building that will be built where Angell stands today, while the engineering building’s renovations will include new foyers that will provide sunnier and more welcoming entrances to the building. The math department, which is currently split between four buildings, and computer science, which is currently based in Votey, will move into one of the new STEM buildings. That will allow the classrooms and labs in Votey to be renovated with larger footprints, as well as to bring in more sunlight and a more open feel by adding glass walls, Freeman French Freeman’s Beck notes. As Vaughan sees it, the STEM complex will transform the campus, both from a physical and academic standpoint, similar to the way the Dudley H. Davis Center created a vital new student center while also providing an updated entrance to the campus. All the STEM fields will be integrated into the complex, rather than more silobased structure used today. “It won’t be, ‘This is chemistry, and this is engineering,’” Vaughan notes. “It will be, ‘This is a floor that has all of them.’”
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STEM complex renderings by Ellenzweig. CEMS | College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences 12 12 | SUMMIT
For more than two decades, NASA’s Space Grant program has given liftoff to innovations from scientists, engineers and students within Vermont. By Kim MacQueen
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When the first manned mission to Mars sets up base on the red planet, its habitat might very well come with a “Made in Vermont” tag. That’s because a team of undergraduates and faculty from UVM’s College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences is developing an inflatable “smart” airlock, thanks to their winning proposal in NASA’s 2015 Exploration Habitat (X-Hab) Academic Innovation Challenge. UVM was one of only five universities selected in the prestigious national competition. While this year marked the first time a CEMS team had entered the X-Hab competition, reaching for the stars is nothing new for the college’s faculty and students. Through the NASA’s National Space Grant program, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, CEMS students and faculty have worked on a range of projects including miniature space satellites called CubeSats and improvements to so-called “lunabots,” or mining robots that can handle the tough lunar landscape. NASA created the Space Grant program to fund science and engineering research and to broaden students’ experiences with aeronautics and space exploration concepts. At five years old, the X-Hab competition represents a newer facet of the program, and comes as private organizations such as Mars One and government space agencies alike consider manned missions to Mars. But sending men and women on deep-space missions comes with a host of engineering problems: what’s the best way to grow food? How can habitats maximize their heating efficiency? To prepare for the X-Hab competition, a group of CEMS senior undergraduate engineering students will spend their two-semester Capstone project tackling a design for a smart-structure deployable airlock, one that would be tough enough to withstand the rough dust storms of Mars, while being simple to set up while far from Earth. Made with “smart” materials, the airlock could self-heal in case of a puncture. “It’s kind of like a bouncy castle, but a little more hightech,” UVM professor of mechanical engineering Darren Hitt told WCAX in June, when NASA announced the CEMS proposal had been chosen.
consortium includes UVM, St. Michael’s College, Vermont Technical College and Norwich University, while faculty represent the fields of mathematics, computer science, physics, chemistry, geography and medicine. The VSGC also features a number of industrial and museum partners. “I’m putting my personal fingerprint on the project these days, but Bill built this,” Hitt notes of Lakin. The 50 state consortiums are charged with encouraging students to pursue aerospace and related careers through so-called STEM – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – education from kindergarten through graduate school and beyond. Because Vermont is specifically targeted toward development of research infrastructure, much of its funding is tied to undergraduate and graduate programs. At CEMS, engineering majors round out their undergraduate experience with the school’s innovative
Space Grant Setup The National Space Grant program reaches all 50 states, with each reporting directly to Congress to secure annual funding, while NASA’s Office of Education administers the program. In 2013, Hitt took the helm of the Vermont Space Grant Consortium (VSGC), which was directed by mathematics professor emeritus William Lakin from when it was founded in the early 1990s until his retirement. The state’s
Above: This image depicts the operation of the UVM 30 kW ICP (Inductively Coupled Plasma) Facility used for high temperature material testing. This facility is used in the screening and performance characterization of current and future NASA thermal protection system (TPS) materials. Photo courtesy of UVM Plasma Test and Diagnostics Laboratory: http://www.cems.uvm.edu/ plasma/ Image page 13: CubeSat rendering by AAUsatlabe
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Senior Experience in Engineering Design (SEED) program, a senior design course familiarly known as Capstone. It’s a chance for undergraduates to get hands-on experience designing and building interdisciplinary projects, with teams working on external projects from companies such Burton Snowboards and municipalities including the city of Essex. The program speaks directly to the Vermont Space Grant’s overall goals for students and Vermont institutions alike. Thanks to Capstone’s approach toward giving students the time and support needed to work on complex engineering problems, it’s served as a natural fit for Space Grant projects such as the inflatable X-Hab module and CubeSat, a mini-satellite. While the CubeSat program was based at Vermont Technical College, Lakin notes that the project brought the schools together.
Tiny Satellites For the CubeSat project, thinking small is also thinking big. A senior Capstone team and counterparts at Vermont Technical College created tiny, 10-centimeter-cubed satellites that provide a low-cost approach to launching new satellites into space. The Vermont Lunar CubeSat, featured in the September issue of The Smithsonian Institution’s Air & Space Magazine, has a goal of orbiting or even landing on the moon. Eric Niebylski ’ 12, a CEMS engineering alumnus who worked on the CubeSat project for his Capstone assignment, explains: “Our project was aimed at designing a novel attitude control system incorporating a catalystbased mono propellant. The scope of the project also included a reliable communication system for control from Earth while in low Earth orbit. All this had to be built to fit within a 10cm x 10cm x 10cm cube.” The objective was one far beyond the reach of most undergraduate projects, and it pushed Niebylski’s team in a variety of ways. The team designed the satellite’s propulsion system by incorporating design and manufacturing principles that they learned about in classes, but hadn’t yet had the chance to apply. Working with Hitt, as well as CEMS professors Douglas Fletcher and Steve Titcomb, the team learned the pros and cons of different manufacturing processes, finally hitting on one that worked best for their application, as well as how to source the materials they’d need. But by far the most valuable part of the process, Niebylski says, was the research and paperwork, which is overlooked in too many senior design projects. Hitt, Fletcher and Titcomb helped the team learn how to detail their research and feasibility studies in extensive, professional design
reports and presentations, providing data for future researchers to follow in their footsteps. “This is one thing that I believe our group excelled in most. With such a short time window and such lofty design goal, what we achieved was monumental,” he notes. Projects funded by the Vermont Space Grant Consortium “truly challenge students.”
A Commitment to Education Some of the major projects funded through the Vermont Space Grant Consortium during Lakin’s tenure have widereaching impact, such as assistant professor Chris Danforth’s research on global climate change with Robert Calahan of the Goddard Space Flight Center. Mary Dunlop, an assistant professor and engineer with secondary appointments in computer science and biology, was given several small-scale grants for her work on how microorganisms use feedback to respond to changes in their environment. Some of those grants have grown into full-fledged, funded research projects with the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. “One of the priorities was to support women and diversity both on the faculty and student level,” Lakin says.
Running the Numbers The Vermont Space Grant’s budget provides four to six graduate fellowships, three to four design projects at UVM, two to three faculty small-scale grants, and various minigrants that are generally used for faculty travel to NASA centers. “We really try to spread the wealth around,” Hitt says. “The research truly expands a student’s education beyond what they learn in the classroom. The projects and the funding give the students opportunities in the academic and professional world that would have not been available to them otherwise.” The VSGC also supports the Governor’s Institutes’ of Vermont Summer Engineering Program and contributes to the Mathematics Institute, as well as a host of internships at NASA centers like Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, Langley Research Center in Virginia, and Ames Research Center in California. “My work often brings different and unique design challenges to my desk,” says Nielbylski, who now works as a design engineer for a small Colorado manufacturing firm. “My ability to tackle the work I do today stemmed from the variety of design challenges that were exposed to me through my project with the VSGC. I hope it’s there for years to come, so future students can enjoy the benefits it has to offer.” u SUMMIT | 15
THE POWER OF A SURFBOARD Inspired by Engineers Without Borders, one CEMS graduate is helping a rural Costa Rican community. By Kim MacQueen There’s a beautiful photo of Tammy Stone ’11 with a gaggle of smiling children holding up two-finger victory signs against the backdrop of a colorful Costa Rica sunset. In another snapshot, community members from the Costa Rican fishing village of Venado – population 300 -stand proudly in front of a new community center. Yet another features a group of young men showing off their handcrafted surfboards. For most people, such photos might serve as fond reminders of a long-past vacation. But for Stone, the images tell the tangible story of how her new Clara Vista foundation is applying the philosophy of Engineers Without Borders (EWB) to rural Venado. While Stone’s work in Venado began last year, her ties to Engineers Without Borders go back to her freshman year at UVM’s College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, when she joined the university chapter of the group. Started in 2002 by University of Colorado professor of civil engineering Bernard Amadei, Engineers Without Borders partners with local communities in developing
Tammy Stone ‘11 works with citizens of the town of Venado, Costa Rica, helping plan projects in the community center that her foundation, Clara Vista, helped to build. Photo by Joe Foster
countries, bringing engineering-based solutions to problems such as road projects in El Salvador and dam restoration in Kenya. Take a current project underway through the UVMBurlington chapter of Engineers Without Borders. A group
of undergraduate students are working with CEMS Dean Luis Garcia, as well as additional mentors from within and outside the college, to create a grey water treatment system for the Nicaraguan village of Venecia. The idea is to design a treatment system that will allow residents to reuse waste water from kitchens, laundries or sinks in their gardens, says Ben Cares ‘16, president of the UVM-Burlington EWB chapter. Currently, the village suffers from food shortages during the dry season due to a lack of water. While designing the treatment system is one part of the Venecia project, the chapter is finding it needs to address some questions that wouldn’t arise within a U.S. project, such as investigating what types of materials will be available to them in Nicaragua, Cares notes. Engineers Without Borders draws students “who want to help others through engineering,” he adds. For Venado’s residents, the surfboards represent an economic opportunity, Stone notes. Her goal through the Surf Mentor program is to help 12 young underprivileged residents learn the skills to create their own boards. That, in turn, will provide them with the know-how for a new business. “We intend on supporting the creation of a small surfboard repair business where they will be able to use their newly acquired skills, like basic shaping, glassing, and sanding techniques, for financial support,” Stone says. “The program is unique, and it’s a great example of coming up with a program that is contextualized to the local culture.” Through Clara Vista, the Surf Mentor program provides the raw materials and training to build the twelve surfboards, which will be available for community members to use. The program is funded through donations of $160, which provides one youth with the materials to build one surfboard. As the Clara Vista Foundation notes, the surfboards supports the youth’s “respect for the ocean and our planet. They have kept their beach clean, maintained the recycling program and donated many hours to the Venado Community Center.” Stone and fellow CEMS ’11 graduates Jessica Buckley and Justin Jannone, who co-founded Clara Vista with her, aren’t only focusing on surfboards. Their program has brought a
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Stone poses in front of the new Venado Community Center with some of the community’s younger members. Photo by Joe Foster
recycling program to the town, helped build the community center, and offered English classes and entrepreneurship opportunities to its citizens. Stone started planning the Costa Rican project that would eventually culminate in her founding Clara Vista when she took a class at UVM with Dan Baker, an associate professor at the university’s Community Development and Applied Economics (CDAE) department. The course introduced the class to some of his fieldwork in Honduras. “Dr. Baker’s courses opened my eyes to international fieldwork. For me, that is where it all started,” Stone says. “I started developing our first program in Costa Rica, in recycling and waste management, while participating in his class.” Stone continued her work with EWB throughout her time in Vermont, then moved to Boulder for graduate school to work more closely with Amadei, who had by then founded the Mortenson Center for Engineering in Developing Communities at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “Passionate about international development, I decided to pursue my Masters degree to take courses in sustainable community development. Bernard was my professor, mentor and advisor,” Stone says. “The new center recognizes that there is a great need to learn about
engineering in developing communities before implementing projects.” Stone notes that she hasn’t lost touch with colleagues from UVM. “Surprisingly, my whole board is UVM alumni from Dr. Baker’s Honduras class. This wasn’t intentional. At first it was only Jessica Buckley and Justin Jannone -- we were on the same Capstone senior design team,” Stone says. Since then, two other UVM graduates – Nicole Mason ’07 and Lesley Bristol ’11 – have joined Clara Vista. Stone now makes trips down to Costa Rica to lead all of the fieldwork while the board helps her maintain Clara Vista. Jannone helps with the website, Mason is the secretary, Buckley helps with project management, and Bristol works on fundraising. But there’s still a lot of work to be done. “Now that the community center is up and running, we are considering taking on interns to help manage the community center in the field and build local capacity,” Stone says. If you are interested in supporting The Surf Mentor program, please email claravistafoundation@gmail.com for more information. For more information about Clara Vista, visit claravista.org. For more information about the UVM-Burlington chapter of Engineers Without Borders, visit http://www.uvm.edu/~ewb/ u SUMMIT | 17
CHANGING THE PARADIGM How the Vermont Mathematics Initiative is reshaping the state’s K-12 math teachers. By Kim MacQueen Just fifteen years ago, Vermont’s public schools faced a numbers crisis. Students in nineteen elementary schools were underperforming in mathematics on state assessments, prompting the state to tap into expertise in academia as it searched for a solution to the daunting problem. The result? In 1999, the state and educators at the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences at UVM banded together to create the Vermont Mathematics Initiative (VMI). The novel effort to strengthen mathematics education across the state was the brainchild of Ken Gross, the University of Vermont Azarius Williams professor of mathematics, and the late state education commissioner Marc Hull.
Together, the pair initially worked with a cohort of elementary and middle school teachers to get the project off the ground. Since then, the program has worked with more than 400 K-12 teachers representing 90 percent of Vermont’s school districts, helping them to develop and reinforce their knowledge and confidence in teaching mathematics concepts. The teachers then take what they’ve learned back to their classrooms, sharing their newfound knowledge with both students and colleagues. “Elementary school teachers were being asked to teach mathematics they didn’t know,” Gross notes. “VMI changed the paradigm. We treated the teachers as professionals and focused on problem solving. We were the first to place the emphasis on the teacher’s own mathematics knowledge and
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let that knowledge drive the pedagogy, but to me it was a no-brainer. It seemed the obvious thing to do.” The proof of the program’s effectiveness can be shown through the outcome for those initial underperforming 19 schools: Within two years of VMI’s existence, every one of those schools was off that list. Once teachers are armed with what it takes to help their students understand mathematics in foundational ways – not just to buzz through math worksheets in preparation for standardized tests – their students almost immediately perform better on those tests. Formal longitudinal evaluations have shown that the students of VMI-trained teachers consistently outperform students in matched control groups in a statistically significant way. “There’s a tendency to measure a program’s success by how the teachers’ knowledge improves, but that’s not what you should be measuring. The teachers’ knowledge is a way station on the road toward your ultimate goal, which is the performance of the students of those teachers,” Gross explains. “We help teachers build selfconfidence through gaining competence in something difficult that many of them couldn’t do before. That improvement in student performance is a direct result of the teachers’ newfound knowledge and confidence.” VMI’s success hasn’t gone unnoticed. Eight other states have adopted the initiative’s approach, including Massachusetts, where Gross implemented it while serving as a visiting professor at Lesley University in Cambridge, and Pennsylvania, which created the Pennsylvania Mathematics Initiative. The effort has also positioned Vermont to take better advantage of the mathematics curriculum reforms demanded by the Common Core, which was adopted by the state in 2010. While Common Core reforms hold both teachers and students accountable for a higher level of competency in mathematics, professional development designed to help teachers implement the new standards has been spotty nationwide – but not in Vermont. Most of the people now leading the state in the Common Core training in mathematics have come through the VMI program, setting Vermont up to meet new federal benchmarks with far less of the hand-wringing going on
now in many other states. In fact, many former VMI students are now statewide leaders in mathematics education in Vermont overall. VMI’s executive director Judi Laird, who will take over for Gross as director as he embarks on a leave of absence in 2014-15, was a member of the first cohort in 1999. So was her brother Bob Laird, as well as Susan Ojala, who form the VMI leadership team along with Gross. Gross says that he, in fact, has learned a great deal about teaching from the outstanding teachers who have gone through VMI – this from a professor who has won UVM’s highest awards for both teaching and research, who never thought of himself as a teacher of teachers until he and Marc Hull got the VMI project underway. “If you had told me 15 years ago I was going to be better known for mathematics education than for research, I would have said you were crazy,” he laughs. u
The Vermont Math Initiative, Summer 2014. Photos by Sally McCay
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IT’S A FAB LAB WORLD At the Vermont Fab Lab at CEMS, the Maker movement finds the sweet spot between art and technology. By Joshua Brown Rachel Schneck holds up a thin sheet of wood intricately cut into the shape of a leaf. Down the table sits a plastic toy guitar with its electronics ripped open. On one wall, a 3-D printer slowly ejects layers of plastic in the shape of Minnie Mouse, an elephant and a Star Wars clone trooper helmet. At the other end of the room is the tabletop laser-cutter that she programmed to cut out her leaf. Schneck, age 16, travelled from Chicago to Vermont to work in this room, UVM’s Fabrication Laboratory in the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences. She’s taking a pre-college course, “Vermont Fab Lab Workshop,” instructed by Jenn Karson, MFA, that is introducing her to the increasing number of links between art and technology. “This class really helps me see the connections between the physical and digital worlds,” Schneck says. And it may be helping her set her path for college and beyond. “I wanted to figure out what I wanted to do for college, but I didn't have any ideas,” she says. “This has opened new worlds for me. I would never have pulled apart toys, or opened circuits or really thought about engineering
if it wasn't for this course.” “We’re not just thinking about stuff,” she says. “You know, we’re building stuff.” Sure, they might be “Barbies with LEDs sticking out of their eyes,” as Schneck describes one of the projects, but underneath this slightly creepy/goofy toy hacking project is a serious introduction to a new world where art and engineering converge: “the DIY maker movement” as Karson’s course description puts it. Jenn Karson holds up Schneck’s wooden leaf again. It looks lovely, but a few of the filigrees look a bit ragged and one or two sections didn’t get cut through fully. She speaks with her student and her teaching assistant, Alex Poniz ’15, a mechanical engineering major. They agree to run the design through the laser cutter again. Getting it right is part of the learning.
Into the unknown Another student in the course, Griffin Spurr, age 16, traveled from San Francisco to Vermont. He’s never taken a summer course before. He’s carefully connecting a series of wires and a tiny motor to a circuit board connected to a laptop; it’s an Arduino kit. Spurr has done a fair bit of computer programming in the past, he says, and has received instruction in the basics of how this kit works—but this morning he’s moving into terra nova, working on his own—and he finds it both difficult and exciting. “I’m not sure what I’m doing right now,” he says. “I’m not even sure what this is supposed to do,” he says, pointing to a dime-
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Alex Poniz ’15, (center), a mechanical engineering major and summer teaching assistant, and Illinois high school student Rachel Schneck (right), inspect a project hot off the laser cutter at UVM’s Fabrication Laboratory. Made by George Valentine (left) a high school student from Montpelier, Vt., the cutout is one of the projects made a by team of pre-college students enrolled in a summer course, Vermont FabLab Workshop. Photos by Joshua Brown
sized, two-bladed rotor. Then he stops, looks up, and grins. “I have a feeling it’s probably going to spin.” Going cheerfully into the unknown is part of the learning too. He, Schneck, and the other high schoolers in this UVM Summer Academy course offered by Continuing and Distance Education are being pushed to think about the connections between design, ecology, and creativity -while making handmade electronics, microcontrollers, e-textiles, and other hybrid electronic/art/digital objects. They each are culminating the course with a self-designed project. “I want to make a laptop cooling pad -- I have one and it’s terrible,” Griffin says. “I can make mine better.” After the group portion of this course concludes, they’ll spend two weeks working on their own to finish these projects. Spurr imagines one that pumps nonconductive mineral oil directly over his computer’s circuits. He’s looking forward to building it. u
The Fab Lab Thanks Larry Williams ‘82 Thanks to the generosity of Larry Williams ’82, the STEM building complex has received its first naming gift, with the Vermont FabLab as the beneficiary. Williams, who graduated with a degree in civil engineering, formed the Redstone Commercial Group in 1992. His company has helped construct new buildings and renovate historic structures such as the Chace Mill on the Winooski River. His vision provides continued support for the Fab Lab and the students exploring art and technology.
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NAMED GIFTS CEMS is grateful for the generosity of alumni, parents and friends that led to the creation of the following scholarships and professorships. For more information or to make a gift to CEMS please contact Charley Thompson of the UVM Foundation at 802-656-8678 or Charley.Thompson@uvm.edu.
SPOTLIGHT ON GIVING: BARRETT SCHOLARSHIPS
Cynthia Barnhart and Mark Baribeau Scholarship Fund The Barrett Foundation Chair
Photo Credit: Rick Levinson
The Barrett Foundation Dean’s Fund for the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences The Barrett Foundation Scholars Program Fund Aldace H. Davison Engineering Scholarship Fund L. Richard Fisher Professorship Fund Erik T. Heath Scholarship Fund Wilfred & Sylvia Hill Endowed Scholarship for Engineering Annie W. & Leopold Laliberte Scholarship Fund Jamie Love and Friends Scholarship
Each year, between four to eight undergraduates at the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences are awarded Barrett Scholarships, which enable them to spend their summers researching topics ranging from how heavy snows might harm Shelburne Farms’ breeding barn roof to developing standards for measuring nano-scale particulates. Disastrous flooding from 2011’s Tropical Storm Irene provided a silver lining for Hannah Anderson ’15. Her Barrett Scholarship project was to study stream bank erosion, and the storm provided new data and opportunities to explore the subject. “Finding ways to decrease the amount of erosion is important for the future of our watersheds,” given rising phosphorus levels and changes brought on by climate change, she say, noting that studies may help town and environmental officials make more informed planning decisions, she says. “This research has created a great experience for me to use my knowledge and help the community and environment. I want to continue doing work like this after I am done with school,” Anderson says. u
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NEW CONNECTIONS Jeff Buzas, the new chair of CEMS’ Department of Mathematics & Statistics, on how data, math and stats are more important than ever to society. By Kim MacQueen This fall brings a change to the college’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics, with longtime chair Jim Burgmeier stepping down from his role and handing the reins to statistics professor Jeff Buzas. The handover comes as the university is gearing up to build a new $104 million STEM complex, which will encourage interdisciplinary research and help attract new students and faculty. SUMMIT checked in with Buzas, who joined UVM in 1993 and has served as director of statistics for the past five years, on his plans for the department.
What are some of the new opportunities the department is exploring? Undergraduate teaching has always been a strength of the department, and we’ll be discussing how to build on that strength at departmental meetings. Among other things, we’ve explored the flipped classroom in statistics, which promotes active learning. We’ll also work on creating new connections within the four research groups of core mathematics, applied mathematics, statistics and complex systems. And we’ve got some great internship programs started with the Vermont Department of Health and the Vermont Energy Investment Corporation that will continue, and we’ll work to build more of those opportunities.
How do you envision the new STEM complex will enhance learning and research for CEMS students and faculty? We are really excited about the new STEM building being planned. It’s important to our department. Currently we’re split off into four different buildings, so our faculty are not all together. Math and statistics is about making connections, so we’re excited about being housed in one place. We think it will help us make more research connections within the department and with faculty in the other disciplines. We’ll be closer to Votey, where the engineers are, and we’ll be housed with computer science and some other disciplines. That will foster hallway conversations that will lead to exciting discoveries.
How do you see the math and stats department changing or growing during your tenure? And with the emerging importance of data science as a skill set for young scientists, how is the department tailoring its offerings? Data are everywhere now; mathematics and statistics are integral to our society more than ever before. With both strong job opportunities and high career satisfaction, majoring in math or statistics is an excellent choice. There has been an increase in math and statistics majors nationwide, and we can do better with increasing majors at UVM. We’ve been exploring new ways to inform students about the opportunities and advantages to studying math/ stats. We are also planning on creating a major in data science. That’s an interdisciplinary degree between statistics, computer science and math. We hope to have the degree available in Fall 2015. We hope to hire faculty interested in collaborating across the research areas in the department and with other disciplines at the university, creating more opportunities for Jeff Buzas, the new chair of CEMS’ interdisciplinary Department of Mathematics & research. u Statistics
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