May 17, 2021

Tyler Duvall ’21 of mechanical engineering puts his senior design team’s drill-powered cart through its paces on the Eastman Quad. (photo by J. Adam Fenster / University of Rochester)

Dear members of the Hajim School Community,

How would you design a human-powered submarine? Or life-like simulated kidney tissue for pre-surgical practice by medical residents? Or a mobile app that motivates you to exercise – by rewarding your “virtual” pet?

These are among 78 exciting senior design and capstone projects by our engineering, data science, and medical device design students that can be virtually viewed and commented on through Thursday. The site includes CAD drawings, videos, and detailed descriptions of projects completed not only by students who have returned to campus, but by those who continue to learn remotely. Completing their in-depth projects during these challenging times is a testament to our students’ resilience, ingenuity, and grit. Please be sure to visit the Design Day website to congratulate them.

Special thanks to all our faculty advisors and sponsors for these projects, and to Paul Funkenbusch, our associate dean, and Emily Sherwood, director of digital scholarship and Studio X, for their hard work in creating such an appealing, easy-to-navigate virtual website.

COMMENCEMENT UPDATE

We are excited to conduct this year’s Commencement ceremonies in person for students on campus and for those who can get here to attend. Those graduates who can’t be here in person will also be able to participate and be recognized remotely.

Unfortunately, we cannot accommodate guests and visitors at our in-person ceremonies due to COVID-19 social distancing and assembly guidelines. However, the ceremonies will be live-streamed.

The traditional College ceremony where degrees are conferred on Arts, Sciences & Engineering undergraduates will be held in four ceremonies at 10 a.m., noon, 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. this Thursday, May 20. Hajim students registered in advance to attend the ceremony of their choice. Live stream links are here.

All College doctoral degrees will be conferred at 10 a.m. this Friday, May 21 at Kodak Hall (live stream link here), and all master’s degrees at 11 a.m. this Saturday, May 22, also at Kodak Hall (live stream link here).

We will individually recognize our graduating Hajim School seniors in three nearly identical ceremonies (live stream links here) on the Eastman Quadrangle this Saturday at:

9 a.m. for audio and music engineering, electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering, and optics
11 a.m. for biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, and interdepartmental engineering
1 p.m. for computer science

Seniors, plan on checking in with your undergraduate coordinator on the patio of Hoyt Hall no earlier than 30 minutes before the start of your ceremony (8:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m. or 12:30 p.m.). You will be assigned a seat on the Quad.

OUTSTANDING STUDENTS

Marc Haddad and Alyssa Ho (Photos by J. Adam Fenster/University of Rochester)

Two Hajim School seniors are featured in a series of profiles celebrating the Class of ’21 as part of the University’s Commencement observances.

Marc Haddad ’21 of mechanical engineering wanted to gain engineering and entrepreneurial skills to help address the breakdown of basic services that affect his family in Beirut, Lebanon. But the endemic corruption that contributes to those problems dictated that Haddad seek higher education abroad. At our University, he says, “every single thing that I have done . . . has made me ready to be many things. I’m not just ready to be a mechanical engineer. I’m also ready to be an entrepreneur. I’m ready to be a politician. So, I am beyond excited to see what’s next.” For now, Marc will stay on another year to complete a master’s degree in technical entrepreneurship and management (TEAM). Read more here.

When Alyssa Ho ’21 gazed up at star-filled night skies while growing up in Denver, she developed a deep interest in space and also in sustainability as a way to help ensure those skies remain clear. Her experiences at our University and our Institute of Optics helped her figure out which of those two paths to pursue as a career. After graduation, the optical engineering major and president of the 2021 Class Council is heading to California to work on space system projects with Raytheon Intelligence and Space. “I really like how the Institute cares about its students,” Alyssa says. “There is constant communication. And especially during the pandemic, they have made sure that everybody was cared for, and was able to have rent and groceries, and as much social support as they could get.” Read more here.

So what else do we know about our Class of 2021?

Of the 31 PhD graduates:

39 percent are women
3 percent are under-represented minorities
55 percent are international students

Of the 179 masters graduates (August 1920 through May 1921):

24 percent are women
9 percent are under-represented minorities
60 percent are international students

Of the 349 graduating seniors:

30.3 percent are women
8.3 percent are under-represented minorities
40.6 percent are international students

Among our departments, it is worth noting that:

Computer science again leads in number of graduating seniors (119), followed by mechanical engineering (64) and biomedical engineering (57).
Biomedical engineering leads again in percentage of women graduating seniors (57.8 percent), followed by chemical engineering (31 percent) and computer science (27.7 percent).

Even more important than statistics, however, are the individual stories about the challenges our students have met and the goals they have achieved, which is what we celebrate during Commencement!

RESEARCH NEWS

What do you get when you imprint freeform optics with a nanophotonic metasurface? “A dream come true,” says Jannick Rolland, the Brian J. Thompson Professor of Optical Engineering and director of the Center for Freeform Optics. Collaborating with Nick Vamivakas, professor of quantum optics and quantum physics and the AS&E dean of graduate education and postdoctoral affairs, the team has created a new design for AR/VR glasses that are compact and easy to wear, delivering high-quality imagery with socially acceptable optics that don’t look like “bug eyes.” In a paper in Science Advances, they describe a device that is able to defy the conventional laws of reflection, gathering the visible light rays entering an AR/VR eyepiece from all directions, and redirecting them directly into the human eye. Read more here.

Congratulations as well to Andrea Pickel, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, who has received a Furth Fund award from the Provost’s Office. These awards, which foster the development of promising scientists in the natural and biological sciences, provide $12,500 to support their research. Andrea’s research focuses on quantifying temperature and heat flow at the nanoscale using sophisticated optical techniques. She will use her award to support a PhD student conducting research in high-throughput optical super-resolution nanothermometry. Andrea has made great strides in establishing an independent research program, including a Doctoral New Investigator award from the American Chemical Society. Well done, Andrea! Read more here.

IN MEMORIAM

David T. Blackstock, a former electrical engineering faculty member here, passed away last month at the age of 91. David joined the department in 1963 and helped pioneer “weak shock theory” which became a key foundation for the field of nonlinear acoustics, says Kevin Parker, the William F. May Professor of Engineering and dean emeritus of engineering and applied sciences. David joined the University of Texas at Austin in 1987 but continued to return here for many years to teach graduate level Acoustics and Nonlinear Acoustics as a summer course. “His continued collaboration with Professor Ed Carstensen in the 1990s led to the revolution in nonlinear imaging using medical ultrasound,” Kevin says. An icon in the Acoustical Society of America, David was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1992. David and his family developed many friendships while in Rochester, and I remember fondly the big smile and hello he would give me when he arrived each summer in Hopeman Hall. Memorial donations may be made to UT’s recently established David T. Blackstock Endowed Undergraduate Scholarship in Acoustics. Read more here.

ALUMNI NEWS

From the moment he arrived on our campus from Nepal, Suman Kumar ’19, demonstrated a remarkable ability to complete not only a rigorous mechanical engineering major, but make a difference in his home country, where he rebuilt schools devastated by earthquakes. Suman has now been accepted into the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program at Stanford University to pursue a master’s degree in international policy at the School of Humanities and Sciences. He is the first Rochester graduate or student to receive this prestigious scholarship. Suman, who is currently in a master’s program in global affairs from China’s Tsinghua University as a Schwarzman Scholar, also received our University’s Presidential Award for Community Service. Well done, Suman! Read more here.

Have a great week!

Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman

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