Engineering Kudos
BSE graduate students win top paper prizes at ASEE annual meeting
July 5, 2023 - Tolu Opanuga and Anu Singh, graduate students in biological systems engineering and both advised by Heidi Diefes-Dux, each earned best paper awards in their respective divisions at the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) meeting held June 25-28 in Baltimore, Maryland.
Opanuga's paper - "Weekly Self-rating of Proficiency with Course Learning Objectives: Gaining Insight into Undergraduate Students’ Perceptions of their Learning" - took the top prize in the Biological and Agricultural Engineering (BAE) Division
Singh's paper - "Pairing Self-Evaluation Activities with Self-Reflection to Engage Students Deeply in Multiple Metacognition Strategies" - won in the New Engineering Educator (NEE) Division.
UNL UCARE Undergraduate Honors Award
5-24-23: Nathan Roberts, a senior from Bellevue, Nebraska majoring in computer engineering and electrical engineering, received the UNL UCARE Undergraduate Honors Award for the most original research in the 2023 Student Research Days Poster Sessions and Creative Exhibitions. This award recognizes an undergraduate student whose question or approach to answering the research question displayed the most originality; Roberts' topic was “How Paul Cezanne Can Improve Learning Generalizable Representations in Deep Vision Models,” and was advised by M.R. Hasan, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering.
Laraoui's team publishes pair of papers in esteemed journals
May 11, 2023 - Abdelghani Laraoui, assistant professor of mechanical and materials engineering, and his graduate students are part of multidisciplinary research teams that have produced a pair of papers that have been published in the same week in separate industry journals. The Nebraska Engineering researchers are part of Laraoui's Quantum Sensing & Defect Discovery and Spectroscopy Lab in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering.
In the May 9, 2023 edition of ACS Nano, "Nitrogen-Vacancy Magnetometry of Individual Fe-Triazole Spin Crossover Nanorods" highlights the potential of nitrogen vacancy (NV) quantum sensors to study the magnetic properties of spin crossover molecules and molecular magnets. Coating iron triazole nanoparticles with a conductive polymer can enable imaging below 20 nanometers and decreasing the size of the nanoparticles leads to a decrease of stray fields. Mechanical engineering graduate students Adam Erickson and Rupak Timalsina are co-authors.
In the May 4, 2023 edition of Advanced Optical Materials, "Plasmon Enhanced Quantum Properties of Single Photon Emitters with Hybrid Hexagonal Boron Nitride Silver Nanocube Systems" demonstrates a 200 percent plasmonic enhancement of single photon emitters' properties through a strong increase in flourescence. This advancement would be desirable for integrated quantum photonic networks. Ufuk Kilic (research assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering), former ECE faculty Christos Argyropoulos, and graduate students Mohammadjavad Dowran (mechanical engineering) and Andrew Butler (electrical engineering) are co-authors.
Alsaleem, grad students have three papers published in prestigious journals
Three research papers - co-authored by Fadi Alsaleem, associate professor in The Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction, and graduate students Mohammad Okour, Mohammad Megdadi, and Sulaiman Mohaidat, were published in prestigious journals in April.
The papers outline a novel way to use microscale beams to build new, efficient computers and sensing technologies. One of the papers was chosen as the top headline in Nature Communications Engineering.
Alsaleem's team also had papers published in IEEE SENSORS and Sensors MDPI.
Durham School team, Waters earn awards at AEI International Student Design Competition
April 21, 2023 - A team of architectural engineering students from the Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction earned three awards at the Architectural Engineering Institute (AEI) International Student Design Competition, held at the AEI Annual Conference, April 13-15 in Denver, Colorado.
The team earned second place in the Building Integration category and first place in Electrical. Additionally, the Nebraska team also recieved a special award for "Sustainability: Embodied Carbon and Recylability."
Clarence Waters, the team's faculty advisor, was presented a special award for his contributions to AEI.
The Nebraska student team members included: Joey Hagge (team leader, Integration, Mechanical), Ben Weyeneth (Mechanical), Ahmed Khalil (Mechanical), Anthony Butler (Mechanical), Caleb Allerheiligen (Structural), Cailin Gentrup (Electrical), Ryan Ehresman (Structural), Garrett Quinn (Electrical), and Makayla Thompson (Electrical).
Bugenhagen elected engineering representative to UNO Student Government
April 21, 2023 - Benjamin Bugenhagen, a senior majoring in architectural engineering, has been elected the 2023-24 UNL College of Engineering Representative in the UNO Student Government elections that ended April 19.
Nebraska Engineering students who are based on Scott Campus in Omaha, maintain dual enrollment status with both the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Nebraska Omaha.
Nebraska student chapter earns MCAA top honor; 3 students receive scholarships
April 14, 2023 - The Mechanical Contractors Association of America selected the Nebraska student chapter to receive the 2022-23 MCAA Student Chapter of the Year Award and a $3,000 prize.
It is the Nebraska chapter's third Student Chapter of the Year Award in the past six years. The award is given annually to a student chapter to recognize "continued achievement and overal focus on offering career opportunities in mechanical contracting to their student membership."
The award was presented to chapter members and faculty advisor Vish Reddi at the MCAA annual convention March 26-30 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Also, three students in the Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction earned MCAA scholarships - Brock Schulz was awarded the Reilly Family Memorial Scholarship, which provides $5,000, and Brodee Paul and Marissa Kelly each received the Alan P. O'Shea Memorial Scholarship, which provides $2,500.
Wachs receives ORS 2023 JOR Spine Early Career Award
April 14, 2023 - Rebecca Wachs, assistant professor of biological systems engineering, was selected as one of two recipients of the 2023 JOR Spine Early Career Award, which was awarded at the Orthopaedic Research Society's annual meeting Feb. 10-14 in Dallas, Texas. Wachs also received a prize of $1,000.
The award is given to an assistant professor within 10 years of completion of their terminal degree who is an ORS Spine Section member in good standing and who has published a manuscript in JOR Spine by October of the year in which they are under consideration for the award.
Durham School student team selected as finalist for AEI Student Design Competition
March 23, 2023 - Team Stratus - comprised of Master of Architectural Engineering students from the Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction - has been selected as one of five finalists to compete in the annual Architectural Engineering Institute Student Design Competition to be held at the AEI Conference in Denver, Colorado on April 12-14, 2023. The Durham School team includes Joey Hagge (team leader), Ben Weyeneth, Anthony Butler, Ahmed Khalil, Garrett Quinn, Makayla Thompson, Cailin Gentrup, Caleb Allerheiligen and Ryan Ehresman.
Construction grad student Schleich on Husker team that wins bass fishing tournament
March 20, 2023 - The University of Nebraska-Lincoln duo of Trevor Schleich, a graduate student in construction engineering and management, and Brett Lubeck, a freshman agribusiness major, won the Major League Fishing Abu Garcia College Fishing tournament March 17 at Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri. The win earned Schleich and Lubeck the $2,000 top prize and qualifies the university's team for the 2024 MLF College Fishing National Championships.
Schleich and Lubeck hauled in the limit of five bass with a combined weight of 20 pounds, 2 ounces, a total that was a pound and a half more than the runner-up team from Auburn University. In total, 230 teams from around the country competed in the event.