If you have trouble reading this e-mail, go to http://ecadw.colorado.edu/enotes/may07

In This Edition click to view topic
ITL Spring Design Expo | Design, Build, Fly Contest | Lunar Module Design | Honors and Awards | Faculty & Staff | College Calendar | In the News | Fast Facts

This multi-user, touch-based image editor won the People's Choice Award at the ITL Spring Design Expo on April 28.

ITL Spring Design Expo
Of the 88 student design projects presented and judged at this spring’s ITL Design Expo, Team TouchUp won the People’s Choice Award for its computer science senior capstone project. Students Jonathan Smith, Nathan Campbell, Tyler Brown and Brian Braeckel created a multi-user, touch-based image editor that is designed to run on the MERL DiamondTouch touch board. This exciting new way to work with other artists to create and design new images was a hit at the public expo. The Center for LifeLong Learning and Design asked the students to create software that could explore the strengths and weaknesses of the center's touch screen table. See http://touchup.colorado.edu for the team’s documentation, screen shots, photographs, presentations and source code.

Also at the Design Expo, the winners of the first annual GEEN 1400 Writing Contest were announced. To underscore how vital good communications skills are for engineers, the ITL Program asked students enrolled in this semester’s six sections of First-Year Engineering Projects (about 180 students) to write a two-page essay answering the question: “What can CU engineering do to best prepare our students to be competitive in today’s global economy?” Herbst Humanities judged the entries. Winners: First-place ($250) went to Anna Herring of environmental engineering, second-place ($150) went to David Eason of mechanical engineering, and third place ($75) went to Nicole Seminara of environmental engineering.

Design, Build, Fly Contest
CU engineering students competed in the 11th annual Design, Build, Fly competition in Tucson, Ariz., April 20-22.  Out of 50 teams that made it to competition, 36 passed inspections, and 18 scored successful flights.  The CU team, which is advised by Brian Argrow of aerospace engineering sciences, successfully completed three of the four available missions, earning a seventh place finish out of 50 teams, an improvement of five places from last year.  “Next year's team will strive to improve on this result and bring CU a first-place finish,” says aerospace engineering junior Spencer Riggs, who served as project manager. The project was featured in CUE 2007.

Lunar Module Design
Ten CU graduate students spent the last year building a  lunar house in a Discovery Learning Center laboratory. The goal of the project was to create a low-cost mock-up that can serve as a platform for research on lunar module design, and ultimately be a stepping stone in the nation’s quest to build a habitat for on Mars. The lunar module is in the pre-project stage at NASA, and thus makes a great focus for student learning, according to David Klaus of aerospace engineering sciences. “NASA hasn’t given us funding, but they have given us the questions that they would want answered,” he says.

Funding from the I-CUE initiative and a private donation have helped to make the mock-up a reality, as well as to purchase two Apollo-era replica spacesuits that are giving students first-hand experience with space suit operations and helping them to size the module appropriately. Anticipated launch of the spacecraft that will carry the final habitat to the moon is in 2018.

Honors and Awards
Congratulations to the following individuals on their outstanding achievements.

Faculty
Adam Norris of applied mathematics was awarded the Peebles Innovation in Education Award, a $2,000 award given by the college to recognize innovations in education.

Michael Hannigan of mechanical engineering received an environmental award for Green Faculty at the 2007 CU-Boulder Environmental Awards Ceremony on April 20.  This award recognizes his commitment to reducing the burden that CU places on the environment.

Ted Randolph of chemical and biological engineering has won the ASEE 2007 Dow Lectureship Award.  The lectureship will be held in conjunction with the ASEE ChE Division Summer School, to be held in July in Pullman, Wash.

David Klaus of aerospace engineering sciences was selected to receive the Boulder Faculty Assembly’s Excellence in Teaching Award for 2007.

Ryan Gill of chemical and biological engineering is one of about 12 winners across all disciplines of the 2007 DuPont Young Professor Award. He will receive funding for three years for genomics approaches to strain engineering for biofuels and biorefining applications.

Carol Cogswell of electrical and computer engineering has been named a fellow of the International Society for Optical Engineering.

Janet deGrazia of chemical and biological engineering was one of four CU-Boulder faculty selected to receive the 2007 Teaching Recognition Award from Herd, the student arm of the CU Alumni Association. The $500 prize funded by the Alumni Association Director’s Club is based on student nominations and online voting.

Frank Barnes, Al Gasiewski, Steven George, Ryan Gill, Jana Milford, Kamran Mohseni, and Rishi Raj are among 16 faculty receiving CU/NREL Seed Grants for sustainable energy projects this summer. The 16 winning projects were chosen from 58 proposals submitted last fall and are being funded with $726,000 from CU-Boulder, the CU System, and NREL.

Staff
Bonnee Basso of engineering management and Ann Brookover of aerospace engineering sciences have been awarded the 2006-07 Outstanding Staff Graduate Advising Award by the Graduate School. The $500 award is based on nomination and support letters from students, faculty, and co-workers.

Emily Liberatore of chemical and biological engineering received the Employee Recognition Award for April.

Cyndi Alvarado of civil, environmental and architectural engineering received the Employee Recognition Award for May.

Students
The following students received awards at the Engineering Recognition Ceremony on May 10:
 l  Matt Unangst, electrical and computer engineering, Outstanding Graduate of the College
 l  Kristopher Tucker, applied mathematics, Outstanding Graduate for Academic Achievement
 l  Arseny Dolgov, aerospace engineering sciences, Outstanding Graduate for Research
 l  Lauren Brickner, chemical and biological engineering, Outstanding Graduate for Service
 l  Clark Berngard, chemical and biological engineering, Colorado Engineering Council Silver Medal Award

Several aerospace engineering students received awards at the AIAA Region V Student Paper Conference in April at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs:
 l  Laurren Kanner won first place in the master’s category for her paper, “Impact of Solar Beta-Angle Seasonal Variations on the Mission Planning of the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer All-Sky Survey.” The award allows her to present again at the AIAA Reno conference next January, representing Region V in the national competition.
 l  Galina Dvorkina and John Shelton took first place in the team category for their paper, “Self Organizing Aerial Reconnaissance System.”
 l  Laurren Kanner, Ryan Kobrick, Danielle Massey and Lisa Geschwill took third place in the team category for their paper, “Education Opportunities Supporting the Development of a Full-Scale Mock-Up of the New Lunar Lander at the University Level: A Case Study.”

Laurren Kanner also had her paper on "MaCH-SR1: Development and Characterization of Hybrid Rocket Technologies through Undergraduate R&D" selected as the best student paper for the Joint Army-Navy-NASA-Air Force Liquid Propulsion Subcommittee meeting in May 2007. 

Stacey Bagg of aerospace engineering, Daniel Belleau of architectural engineering, Brandon Gilles of electrical engineering, and Stephanie Nelson of chemical engineering were among 135 Tau Beta Pi Scholars selected for scholarships during the 2007-08 academic year. Each will receive a cash award of $2,000 for their senior year of study.

Alumni
Jim Tighe (AeroEngr’97) received the 2006 Kalpana Chawla Outstanding Recent Graduate Awards from the CU Alumni Association on May 9. Tighe was chief aerodynamicist of SpaceShipOne, the privately funded manned spacecraft that won the $10 million Ansari X Prize.

Faculty & Staff
Welcome to the following new staff:
 l  Courtney Staufer, communications associate, Dean’s Office (formerly with MEP/WIEP)
 l  Laura Umana, administrative assistant, Chemical and Biological Engineering

Congratulations and farewell to the following faculty, who retired during the last academic year:
 l  Melvyn Branch (May '07)
 l  Subhendu Datta (June '07)
 l  David DiLaura (May '07)
 l  Dan Frangopol (Aug. '06)
 l  Jan Kreider (Dec. '06)
 l  Arnoldo Majerfeld (May '07)
 l  Fred Ramirez (May '07)
 l  Jon Sauer (Aug. '07)
 l  William Waite (Aug. '06)
 l  Patrick Weidman (Dec. '06)

RETURN TO TOP