September 25, 2017

Dear members of the Hajim School community,

Kedar Shashidhar ’15 (KEY) is fulfilling his dreams. One of the first graduates of our audio and music engineering program, Kedar attended the Light and Sound Interactive conference at the Rochester Convention Center recently, demonstrating a 3D headphone made by OSSIC, the San Diego company he works for as associate creative director. His job involves creating original content, such as music and VR games, to showcase the capabilities of the headphone; interacting with other content creators; and creating software tools. Kedar says he’s “absolutely” enjoying his work and credits Mark Bocko, chair of electrical and computer engineering, for enabling him to attend a games developer conference where he hooked up with OSSIC. The audio and music engineering degree, he adds, is a “huge plus” in the eyes of employers he’s talked with. “It teaches students not only how to do audio in a creative capacity,” Kedar says, “but prepares you with actual engineering skills, and that is what the audio industry really wants now.”

Congratulations to:

Melissa Becker ’17 of chemical engineering, now a master’s student in the lab of Wyatt Tenhaeff. Melissa received a Student Achievement Award at Digital Rochester’s 2017 GREAT Awards ceremony last Tuesday. Melissa was nominated for the award by Wyatt to recognize her work on making polymer-ceramic mosaics that could make the production of solid-state lithium batteries more industrially feasible. This was initiated as a senior design project. Melissa “represented the University and our department very well, and I am very happy for her,” says Wyatt, who attended the ceremony. Digital Rochester is made up of professionals and companies working together to strengthen the Greater Rochester Area’s technology business community.
Ehsan Hoque, assistant professor of computer science, who has been named the Asaro Biggar Family Fellow in Data Science for a three-year term. The fellowship is possible as the result of a leadership gift by University Trustee Stephen Biggar ’92 and his wife, Elisabeth Asaro-Biggar ’92 in support of data science and athletics.
PhD student Nicholas Kochan and Maximillian Bruggeman ’19 of the Institute of Optics who received individual awards for their entries in the 2017 Robert S. Hilbert Memorial Optical Design Competition. Their projects were part of the design class taught by Julie Bentley, associate professor. Now in its 18^th year, the annual competition is open to students in North America working toward a bachelor’s, master’s or doctorate degree who use Synopsys CODE V or LightTools software to perform optical design and engineering research. Read more here.
Diane Dalecki, chair and professor of biomedical engineering; Denise Hocking, professor of pharmacology and physiology, and their former PhD student Kelley Garvin for the US patent issued recently for the novel technology they created. It uses acoustic forces within ultrasound standing wave fields to pattern cells volumetrically and engineer three-dimensional blood vessel networks within hydrogels. Primary applications of this technology include engineering vascularized tissue models for drug testing, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine.

Team Meliora, whose members include Omar Soufan ’17 of biomedical engineering and Ibrahim Mohammad, a PhD student in mechanical engineering, reached the semifinals of the Hult Prize, the world’s largest social entrepreneurship competition, before being eliminated last month in a wildcard competition against teams from Harvard and the University of Southern California. But they plan to continue their global mission to build homes for refugees using Lego-style bricks made from recycled plastic. Their initial focus is in Mexico, where they have agreements and partnerships with local and international organizations. Raising funds for the project will be critical to its success. You can track their progress at their blog. We wish the team all the best.

Have a great week,

Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman