The College of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a aspect of The University of Alabama System, hosted the 2nd annual UAH Engineering Showcase all through Engineers Week 2023, Feb. 19 – 25. Founded by the Countrywide Modern society of Expert Engineers in 1951, EWeek is dedicated to making certain a various and well-educated long term engineering workforce by growing understanding of, and desire in, engineering and engineering occupations.
“The participation of 200-in addition UAH engineering students in our 2nd Yearly Engineering Showcase produced the function extraordinarily effective,” notes Dr. Shankar Mahalingam, dean of the College or university of Engineering. “They outdid themselves in presenting their initiatives with enthusiasm, although displaying their technological knowing to our website visitors. I was extremely amazed by our taking part freshmen for what they have been ready to carry out in just a month past their 1st semester at UAH. The event’s in general success was only possible via the superb group help that we at The University of Alabama in Huntsville are privileged to enjoy.”
Senior engineering student Michael Schiermeier screening the toughness of his bridge. The UAH University of Engineering held a Lego bridge creating opposition to commemorate Engineering 7 days. The bridge experienced to span at minimum 12 inches, and the winner was identified by which bridge could guidance the most bodyweight.
At the showcase, learners from Senior Design, College student Businesses/Competitors Groups and Undergraduate Investigation offered the position and benefits of their perform to company partners and friends by a collection of assignments and competitions. All eight undergraduate engineering systems provided by UAH were being featured as portion of this party. Roughly 230 undergraduate engineering students offered 45 assignments, 150 neighborhood companions representing 50 providers and governmental organizations attended this event.
“I am very very pleased of the college students, school and staff members for their excellent accomplishments above the earlier calendar year that have had a substantial effect on Alabama, our nation and extending throughout the globe,” states Dr. Mahalingam.
Actions all over the week integrated Engineering Advising Open up Property, Consider a Professor to Lunch, Afternoon Artwork at Engineering on the Greenway and LEGO Setting up contests, a competitors in which students had been tasked with constructing a LEGO bridge to see which bridge could stand up to the maximum static load. The Faculty of Engineering offered awards to excellent undergraduate college students by plan, remarkable graduate students by division, two fantastic junior college and one particular outstanding senior school at the 2023 Engineers Week Banquet at the Jackson Centre in Huntsville, an occasion organized by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Larger Huntsville Area.
At last, to cap off E-7 days celebrations, the pursuing Engineering highlights from the past year are presented to paint a vivid photograph of just a handful of of the countless approaches UAH, the College or university of Engineering and analysis facilities are doing work to positively affect the Huntsville neighborhood, the point out of Alabama and far outside of.
INNOVATION AND DISCOVERY
Dr. Moonhyung Jang and Dr. Gang Wang in the Adaptive Structures Laboratory learned a simple, price-successful electricity generator. The breakthrough makes use of triboelectric nanogenerators that hire various layers of various products to make electrical power when pressed.
A graduating senior aerospace engineering university student is doing work to produce a micro-aerial auto that can fly like a monarch butterfly. For his ingenuity, Thomas Clark received second area in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Regional Scholar Conferences Location II Undergraduate Classification. Clark’s paper competed towards extra than 170 college student projects from all across the Southeast.
Doctoral pupil Samantha Rawlins received greatest university student paper at the 13th Liquid Propulsion and 12th Spacecraft Propulsion Joint Subcommittee Meeting. Rawlings paper investigates numerous means that trustworthiness early in the engineering course of action can impact a nuclear thermal propulsion engine’s style and design and exam plan to improve self esteem that the engine will function successfully in space.
Dr. Anu Subramanian, a professor of chemical and supplies engineering, is discovering how the consequences of low-intensity ultrasound on cartilage regrowth might one particular working day rebuild more powerful knees adhering to harm or medical procedures. Dr. Subramanian’s overall NIH study awarded so far in this industry is approximately $1.9 million.
Jacob Keese, master’s university student in mechanical engineering, won very best student paper at the American Nuclear Society’s current Nuclear and Emerging Systems for Place (NETS) meeting. Keese’s analysis included investigations into a novel principle of nuclear thermal spacecraft propulsion known as Centrifugal Nuclear Thermal Propulsion.
Dr. Biswajit Ray, an assistant professor of electrical and pc engineering, and his college student workforce have gained a 5-12 months, $650,000 Nationwide Science Foundation College Early Occupation Improvement Plan (Job) award to perform research to make potential laptop good condition drives (SSDs) additional resilient, durable and strength-successful. Dr. Ray also created a new system of radiation-resistant laptop or computer data storage identified as watermark storage that has direct apps in the nuclear ability and room industries.
Dr. Elias Ali, a lecturer in the Division of Civil Engineering, is exploring an engineered composite material for developing or retrofitted design that could support give occupants additional time to escape a bomb blast or when a hearth breaks out.
UAH is major a collaboration of universities across the nation to acquire a cutting-edge nuclear thermal propulsion rocket engine using centrifugal liquid gasoline bubble-by means of technologies that could a single day be a ticket for NASA to go straight into deep room.
Scholar AND School ACCOMPLISHMENT
The Place Hardware Club rocketed a payload to a suborbital house and again aboard a Terrier-Orion rocket out of the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia as aspect of the NASA RockOn and RockSat-C systems. CubeSat propulsion analysis landed doctoral pupil Andrew Walsten a DOE Sandia Labs internship to mentor with a Office of Energy physicist. Walsten’s operate involves propelling microsatellites and CubeSats utilizing ionized plasma from a micro-electrical motor.
Aerospace engineering undergrad Megan Jordan was selected for UAH’s to start with Brooke Owens Fellowship. This fellowship serves the two as an inspiration and as a job raise to able young women and gender minorities who aspire to investigate the stars. Owens had before won the Patti Grace Smith Fellowship for “extraordinary Black students.”
UAH Honors pupils from the section of aerospace engineering ended up presented German Educational Exchange Assistance (DAAD) Investigate Internships in Science and Engineering (Increase). DAAD Increase internships are opportunities for STEM sophomores and juniors to conduct specialised research in Germany for up to twelve weeks. DAAD Increase interns receive a month-to-month stipend and journey expenditures, as nicely as fingers-on research encounter that aids upcoming graduate faculty, fellowship and work programs.
The Engineering Showcase showcased college students from Senior Structure, Pupil Organizations/Levels of competition Teams or Undergraduate Investigate presenting their function, jobs and competitions.
The Area Hardware Club robotic rover team finished 3rd between U.S. groups and sixth over-all in a competition at the College Rover Challenge Finals in the desert of southern Utah.
Five UAH engineering college students were awarded the nationally competitive Division of Protection Science, Arithmetic and Study for Transformation (DoD Good) Scholarship. DoD Sensible is a scholarship-for-services application in which the DoD offers a whole scholarship for recipients to pursue STEM degrees that are centered on analysis to additional the DoD’s mission
3 CanSat teams positioned 1st, second and 3rd in the nation during an intercontinental levels of competition in the American Astronautical Culture-sponsored aerospace style and design and manufacturing celebration.
Babak Salarieh, a doctoral pupil in civil and environmental engineering, was awarded a 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers O.H. Ammann Investigate Fellowship in Structural Engineering Research to analyze the results of climate improve on the destruction wrought by hurricanes and how to support neighborhood resilience by means of mitigation.
Saroj Kumar, a doctoral candidate in mechanical and aerospace engineering received an accolade from the Worldwide Astronautical Federation’s 73rd Worldwide Astronautical Congress in Paris, France. Kumar’s interactive presentation “Spacecraft Built-in System Product for NTP Driven Planetary Science Missions” was picked as the finest IP in Place Engineering.
Two undergraduate scientists presented their exploration on the price of design-dependent units engineering (MBSE) to users of the U.S. Congress in Washington, D.C. Kelly Campo is majoring in industrial and methods engineering and Thomas Teper is majoring in aerospace engineering.
Coastal resiliency researcher Dr. Abdullahi Salman, an assistant professor of civil engineering, was named to the 2022 cohort of Early-Job Investigation Fellows in the Environmental Protection and Stewardship keep track of by the Gulf Study Program (GRP) of the Countrywide Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The fellowship involves a $76,000 award.
2023 EWeek honorees include things like exceptional undergraduate college students Sydney Miller, aerospace engineering Nathaniel Foldenauer, chemical engineering Jabe Outland civil engineering Benjamin Curths, laptop engineering Connor Stewart, cybersecurity engineering Ethan Hoben, electrical engineering Tamia Neal, industrial and methods engineering Michael Sorrell, mechanical engineering excellent graduate learners Muntaseer Bunion, chemical and products engineering Amir Zahraniu, civil and environmental engineering Micah Tseng, electrical and computer engineering Daniel Colvett, industrial & units engineering and engineering administration and Saroj Kumar, mechanical and aerospace engineering excellent junior school Dr. Abdullahi Salman, Dr. Guangsheng Zhang, and remarkable senior school Dr. Gabe Xu.
Offering TO Expand NEW ENGINEERS
UAH declared the establishment of the Senator Richard Shelby Endowed Chair in Engineering in the College of Engineering. This endowment will make it possible for UAH to recruit excellent faculty, additional put together tomorrow’s leaders and honor a vital public servant. An endowed chair is a single of the greatest academic accolades a scholarly skilled can receive and encourages the optimum typical of excellence.
The Gary Donald Endowed Scholarship was proven with a $250,000 gift from Avion Answers to guidance engineering and science learners.
The Janice Hays Smith Electrical Engineering Scholarship was inaugurated with a $210K present to fund an endowed scholarship for electrical engineering students.
The Mary Makima and Lester M. Ross, Sr. Scholarship in Engineering supplies support to graduate engineering pupils that will help them emphasis on their investigate and completing their degrees.
Sangeeta Singhal pledged $1,000,000 to set up the Ashok K. Singhal Endowed Chair in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, named in honor of her late partner, Dr. Ashok K. Singhal. This reward will build the initial endowed Chair in the Higher education of Engineering that is endowed by an individual, non-company donor.
ALUMNI ACCOLADES
Alumnus Jeffrey Langhout was honored with the Alumni of Achievement award from the College of Engineering. Langhout is the Director of the U.S. Army Beat Abilities Advancement Command Aviation & Missile Middle Director, and as these kinds of, he is the leader of the most significant engineering workforce in Alabama.
Engineering alumnus Robert Green is a senior director for Boeing’s Integrated Air & Missile Protection portfolio, which supports very important protection techniques, these types of as the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3), the Aegis Ballistic Missile Protection and Avenger. As a Indigenous American, Inexperienced is also an govt winner for the Huntsville chapter of the Boeing Native American Network, an corporation that operates to provide the variety of Indigenous cultures to the Boeing workforce.
Electrical engineering alumna Tia Ferguson was celebrated for her profession at NASA, particularly showcasing a time when she trekked to the South Pole to retrieve an essential NASA balloon experiment.
Engineering alumna Kristin Spencer Spearman was selected as the 2022 Outstanding Young Alumni of Accomplishment. Spearman is the Vice President of Transmission Planning & Projects for the Tennessee Valley Authority. In this role she potential customers a group liable for project planning and execution for a single of the largest transmission methods in North The united states.
Alumna Dr. Stephanie Reitmeier was regarded as the Civilian Worker of the 12 months by the U.S. Military. Dr. Reitmeier is the Affiliate Director of the U.S. Military Fight Capabilities Progress Command Aviation & Missile Heart, Propulsion and Buildings, Technological innovation Progress Directorate.
Services AND OUTREACH
Dr. Abdullahi Salman, an assistant professor of civil engineering, was awarded a 5-yr, $505,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) Job grant to analysis improving upon total hurricane and significant weather conditions resilience of coastal communities.
UAH hosted the Girls in Science and Engineering Working day. This well-liked system delivers together soaring third through fifth quality women from across North Alabama for STEM functions. Two hundred registrants rotated as a result of 4 distinctive STEM workshops that includes actions such as propulsion and the principles of flight, robotics, extraction of DNA, generating ice product with liquid nitrogen and making use of a wind tunnel to display flight.
UAH’s Rotorcraft Systems Engineering and Simulation Heart provided unmanned plane techniques and technological capabilities to the Cooperative Institute for Research to Operations in Hydrology to assistance a $360 million college alliance to superior forecast h2o-connected dangers and handle the nation’s water methods.
A pupil engineering workforce developed and deployed an interactive light show for visitors to the Huntsville Botanical Back garden. The installation was finished as section of a senior layout task.
UAH hosted Tech Trek, an occasion intended to elevate awareness and curiosity in STEM fields for growing eighth quality girls from throughout the point out of Alabama. A whole of 64 women from 24 Alabama counties participated in the experiential summer time camp, led by profitable gals researchers, engineers and industry experts.
A pupil staff headed by Andrew Zelinka, a mechanical engineering senior, positioned first in the Boeing New Small business Challenge by creating VioClean, a garment and towel sanitizer that uses a new technologies that capitalizes on the germicidal qualities of UV-C gentle to minimize microorganisms in a towel or garment.
CELEBRATING MILESTONES AND Accomplishment
The Propulsion Exploration Heart (PRC) celebrated its 30th anniversary with a banquet and a Propulsion Symposium cookout. In excess of 75 alumni returned for the weekend’s functions, some from as considerably absent as California, Washington state, and Florida. Alumni spoke about how UAH positively impacted their lives and their professions, and quite a few pointed out the personalized guidance and encouragement furnished.
UAH hosted the 15th annual Wernher von Braun Memorial Symposium for leading governing administration officers, industry executives, academia and the aerospace engineering local community. The symposium talked about the hottest developments and future options and problems to the foreseeable future of area exploration, as perfectly as depict a exceptional chance for pupils and college to engage with scientists, engineers and NASA administrators.
State OF ALABAMA ENGINEERING Corridor OF FAME INDUCTEES
Dr. Michael Griffin, previous UAH Eminent Scholar and Professor, previous U.S. Beneath Secretary of Defense for Study and Engineering.
Dr. Lisa Watson-Morgan (’94 MSE, Industrial and Programs Engineering, ’08 Ph.D., Industrial and Devices Engineering), Plan Supervisor for NASA’s Human Landing Technique.
Jeffrey Langhout, (’91 M.S. Engineering Administration), Director of the U.S. Military Overcome Abilities Improvement Command’s Aviation and Missile Heart.
