June 25, 2018

Dear members of the Hajim School community,

Rising juniors Sabastian Abelezele, Louisa Anderson, Katherine Korslund, Marcos Dos Santos, Samantha Okinow, and Seungju Yeo are using a drone, a top-of-the-line transit, photogrammetry software, and other sophisticated tools to survey historic forts along the coast of Ghana this summer. The six mechanical engineering students are among 10 participants in a field school being led for the second year by faculty members Renato Perucchio and Chris Muir of mechanical engineering and Michael Jarvis of history, in collaboration with three faculty members at the University of Ghana: Kodzo Gavua, the co-director of the field school, and William Gblerkpor and Samuel Nkumbaan, who is also a visiting scholar here.

Once again, students are sharing their experiences through a blog. Their entries bring home the importance of global experiences that not only enable students to apply their engineering skills to real-world problems, but to also spend time in a different country and learn about its people and culture. In this case, the students are literally touching history.

By the time they leave at the end of this month, the students will survey not only Elmina Castle, but two other coastal forts, which have suffered much more deterioration, for a comparative study. They will also hear lectures on the historical and anthropological context of the forts – what was Ghana like before the Europeans arrived, and how has it changed since? This will include presentations by Christopher DeCorse, professor of anthropology at Syracuse University and an expert in the transformations that occurred in Africa during the period of the Atlantic trade.

Wish I could be there!

That top-of-the-line transit the students are using, by the way, is a “total station,” which can record both angle and distance measurements, so they can be downloaded to the software the students are using to create 3D models of the structures they are surveying. “This is a big plus,” Renato says.

The total station was purchased with funding from the Wadsworth C. Sykes Engineering Faculty Award, established as a memorial to the Class of 1920 mechanical engineering alumnus who founded a pipeline construction company and served as a Brighton town councilman.

The annual award supports innovations in teaching through purchases of equipment or development of new curriculum.

Our other recipient this year is Ajay Anand, deputy director of the Goergen Institute for Data Science, who will use his award to develop Data Science Using Sensors – A Hands-on Experience, a course that will expand our course offerings in introductory microprocessor-based interface and control.

This is a great example of how gifts from our alumni or created in their memory can make a big difference for our students.

Congratulations to Joseph Marron ’81, ’86 (PhD), an alumnus of the Institute of Optics who recently received the 10 millionth patent issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. “Coherent Ladar Using Intra-Pixel Quadrature Detection” is a new way to obtain real-time readings from large laser radars, with a wide variety of applications. Joseph is a principal engineering fellow at Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems. Read more here.

Due to the July 4 holiday, the next issue of Hajim Highlights will be July 9.

Have a great week!

Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman