CU aerospace engineering senior Kristian Hahn and May '09 graduate Karina Ogilvie conduct an experiment on NASA's Zero-G aircraft in June.

Students Experience Microgravity on NASA Flight

Kristian Hahn and Karina Ogilvie both describe it as the best day of their lives. The aerospace engineering students were part of a five-student CU-Boulder team selected to participate in NASA’s 2009 Microgravity University flight season.

For a week in June, they and teammates Christopher Chavez, Steven Ramm, and Swarandeep Singh worked with NASA engineers and specialists at Johnson Space Center to ready their Wilberforce Pendulum Microgravity Experiment and prepare themselves physiologically for the rigors of flight on the Zero-G aircraft.

Their science mission was to determine the coupled angular and linear modes of a Wilberforce pendulum without the influence of gravity. A similar experiment was attempted during a NASA Skylab III mission, but the students came up with a novel design they hoped would have better results.

Visit CU Engineering on Facebook

The college recently launched two Facebook fan pages to help stay in touch with our constituents:
1) “CU Engineering @ Boulder” is a fan page for prospective students and the community at large
2) “University of Colorado at Boulder – Engineering Alumni” is a fan page for college alumni

Clothing Donations Sought for 'Suit Yourself'

Career Services is partnering with CU Engineering’s BOLD Center and the Multicultural Business Students Association to collect gently worn business attire from the community for the sixth annual “Suit Yourself” clothing sale in the fall.

Donated clothing will be sold to students and alumni at low cost so that they are well-dressed for career fairs and job interviews. Proceeds from the sale will benefit the BOLD Center and MBSA. For the past four years, the sale has raised over $6,000 each year, which has helped to provide student scholarships.

Men’s and women’s suits, jackets, pants, shirts, skirts, ties and handbags will be accepted through Sept. 21 at Career Services and all Art Cleaners stores in Boulder. For more information, email Lisa.Lovett@colorado.edu.

Honors & Awards

Congratulations to the following individuals on their outstanding achievements:

Faculty

Eric Frew of aerospace engineering sciences was awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER Award for research and education on “Mothership/Daughtership Architectures for In Situ Science by Robotic Sensor Networks.” His objective is to develop fundamental understanding of control strategies that can exploit the complimentary computation, sensing, and communication capabilities of the members of a mothership/daughtership robotic sensor network performing in situ volumetric sensing.

Paul Chinowsky of civil, environmental, and architectural engineering was selected to receive the Construction Industry Institute’s 2009 Distinguished Professor Award.

Chuck Kutscher of mechanical engineering earned a first-place, gold Excel Award from the Society of National Association Publications for his editorial, “Tackling Climate Change: The Debate Is Over! (Or Is It?)” in the January/February 2009 issue of Solar Today.

Ronggui Yang of mechanical engineering was selected to participate in the National Academy of Engineering’s 15^th annual Frontiers in Engineering Symposium. The Sept. 10-12 event at the University of California, Irvine, brings together a diverse group of the country's most promising young engineers to discuss multidisciplinary ways of addressing the issues that will carry us into tomorrow's economy.

Rick Han of computer science and his graduate students won the Computer Science award in CU’s New Venture Challenge for their iPhone application, Hoozat, which allows users to view the Facebook profiles of people who are physically near to them. Their startup company, TechoShark, debuted the application in Apple’s iTunes store in June.

Staff

Evan Cantor of computer science has provided 25 years of service to CU-Boulder.

Beth Myers of ITL/administration has provided 10 years of service to CU-Boulder.

Students

Riley Pack, a senior majoring in electrical and computer engineering and applied mathematics, has been named a recipient of the 2009-10 Astronaut Scholarship. The prestigious scholarship, worth $10,000, is one of only 19 awarded nationwide by the foundation established by the original Mercury astronauts.

Abby Watrous, a graduate student in civil engineering, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study renewable energy technologies in China in 2009-10. >>Read more and watch NSF video

New Faculty & Staff

Welcome to the following new faculty and staff joining the college:

Nicholas Vocatura, Administrative Assistant, Computer Science

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