September 3, 2019

Dear members of the Hajim School community,

Congratulations to Marvin Doyley, professor of electrical and computer engineering, who is one of 20 faculty members nationwide who have been selected as fellows for the first cohort of the IAspire Leadership Academy, a program aimed at helping STEM faculty from underrepresented backgrounds ascend to leadership roles at colleges and universities. The one-year core curriculum includes three 1-week in-person sessions, peer coaching sessions, and a concurrent individual learning component (institutional action project). Marvin’s project involves creating a pipeline to help diversify graduate students and faculty in his department in two ways:

• Applying for National Science Foundation funding for an REU (research experience for undergraduates) program that would bring underrepresented minority and women students from other colleges and universities to his department to do mentored summer research projects. The hope is they would then return to the department to do graduate work.
• Applying for National Institutes of Health funding for training grants to help support underrepresented minority and women graduate students in the department.  “And if they’re great, we would hire them (as faculty members),” Marvin says.

Well done, Marvin! Read more here.

Hajim School faculty and Laboratory for Laser Energetics scientists have received federal funding for several exciting projects lately. For example:

Our High Energy Density Physics program, led by Gilbert “Rip” Collins, Dean’s professor of mechanical engineering and LLE’s associate director for science, technology, and academics, has received a $4 million grant from DOE’s Office of Fusion Energy Science to better understand and apply the quantum (subatomic) phenomena that cause materials to be transformed at pressures more than a million—even a billion—times the atmospheric pressure on Earth. The potential dividends are huge, including superfast quantum computers, cheap energy created from fusion, a more secure stockpile of nuclear weapons as a deterrent, and a better understanding of how planets and other astronomical bodies form. Niaz Abdolrahim and Ranga Dias, both assistant professors of mechanical engineering, and Ryan Rygg, Danae Polsin, and Mohamed Zaghoo from LLE are collaborators on this project, along with distinguished scientists from a number of other institutions across the globe. Read more here.

Ross Maddox, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and neuroscience, in collaboration with Paul Allen, research program manager in the Department of Otolaryngology; Margo Benoit, associate professor and director of pediatric otolaryngology; and Mark Orlando, associate professor of clinical otolaryngology, has received a $1.9 million National Institutes of Health R01 grant to develop a better way to test for hearing loss in infants and to prescribe treatments such as behavioral intervention or hearing aids. The current diagnostic tool — frequency-specific auditory brainstem response (ABR) — presents brief sounds over a range of frequencies and intensities and records the brain’s response through electrodes placed on the head. To ensure good recording quality in pediatric use, the test is performed while the patient sleeps. However, if the patient wakes up early, the test is cut short, leading to incomplete diagnoses or the need to return for a second visit. In some patients it may be necessary to use sedatives or general anesthesia to ensure good measurements, but recent studies have found that early exposure to such drugs may damage the developing brain and cause cognitive problems. Ross and his collaborators will develop and test a new kind of frequency-specific ABR exam—the parallel ABR (pABR), which presents sounds simultaneously, rather than one at a time—to provide faster, more informative diagnoses. Before testing in infants, the technique’s feasibility will first be tested in adults, so that results can be compared to the behavioral tests of hearing loss that are possible in adults.

Afnan and Claude are both members of our Grand Challenges Team EZ Water, which will participate in the Global Grand Challenges Summit 2019, to be held in London September 16-20. Other members are Muhammad Miqdad ’19 of chemical engineering; Sara Anis ’20 of biomedical engineering, and Kareem Abdelmaqsoud ’22 of chemical engineering.  The event will convene world leaders with the next generation of engineers to build creative collaborations among the US, UK and Chinese National Academies of Engineering. They will seek to answer the question “How can we sustain 10 billion people on Earth?” 

Graduate students applying for the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship in October, 2019 —  or considering applying in October, 2020 — are invited to share their questions with an expert panel, starting at 11:30 a.m. this Thursday, September 5 in the Hawkins-Carlson Reading Room at Rush Rhees Library. Faculty who are National Science Foundation reviewers, along with successful NSF GRFP fellows, will lead a discussion on successful application strategies for this prestigious fellowship. Graduate students enrolled in a degree-granting graduate program are limited to only one application to the GRFP, submitted in the first year or at the beginning of the second year of their degree program. Attendees who are not already familiar with the fellowship should review eligibility and program details  prior to the session. Attendees are welcome to bring their lunch. Register here to reserve your seat.

As I mentioned in my greeting to the Class of ’23, it’s important for engineering students to take advantage of the opportunities at our school and University to connect with people and get involved with engineering-related professional societies and affinity groups. For example, this Friday, September 6, the University’s SPIE student chapter (SPIE is the international society for optics and photonics) is hosting its annual General Interest Meeting. You can enjoy free lunch (not pizza!) and learn about optics outreach opportunities, company tours, social and networking events, and invited speakers during the upcoming year. The meeting is at 1:45 p.m. in Goergen 108. If you have questions, contact urspie@gmail.com.

Have a great week,

Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman