Engineering Kudos
Four electrical engineering students awarded IEEE PES scholarships
Four Nebraska Electrical Engineering students - seniors Jackson Cutsor, Jacob Eckstrom and Alexander Meier, and junior Megan Stokey - have been chosen as IEEE Power & Energy Society Scholars for 2017-18. Eckstrom and Meier earned the PES scholarship for the third straight year. Cutsor also received the PES scholarship in 2016-17. The Nebraska honorees, who will receive up to $3,000 for the current academic year, were among the 230 chosen from American and Canadian universities from 548 applicants.
Christopher Tuan receives 2017 TechConnect Defense Innovation Award
Christopher Tuan, professor of civil engineering, received the 2017 TechConnect Defense Innovation Award during the Defense Innovation Summit, Oct. 3-5 in Tampa, Florida. The award recognized Tuan's development of concrete that can shield structures against electromagnetic pulses: high-energy bursts of electromagnetic waves that can disable electronics and power grids. Tuan's research has also developed another formulation of the concrete that can conduct just enough electric current to offer de-icing capabilities. Only 15 percent of innovations submitted to the Defense Innovation Summit were selected for the award.
Shannon Bartelt-Hunt selected to Big Ten Academic Alliance Leadership Development program
Shannon Bartelt-Hunt, professor of civil engineering and Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food fellow, is one of 10 University of Nebraska-Lincoln faculty chosen to participate in the Big Ten Academic Alliance Leadership Development program for the 2017-18 academic year. The selection of the 10 Nebraska faculty is sponsored by the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor.
Dean Pérez named ASEE Fellow
Lance C. Pérez, interim dean of the College of Engineering, was chosen to become an American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Fellow during the organization's recent conference in Columbus, Ohio. Pérez was one of 11 faculty from across the country who were accorded the honor. The ASEE Fellow is given to society members in recognition of outstanding contributions to engineering or engineering technology education.
CSE student-faculty team wins Best Paper Award
Computer Science and Engineering students and faculty received the best paper award during the recent ACM International Conference on Nanoscale Computing and Communication. The paper, "End-to-End Molecular Communication Channels in Cell Metabolism: An Information Theoretic Study," was written by graduate students Zahmeeth Sakkaff, Mikaela Cashmanand J. L. Callett, along with faculty Massimilian Pierobon, Myra Cohen, Nicole Buan and Christine Kelly. The paper was the result of an interdisciplinary, National Science Foundation-funded research project between biochemistry and mathematics departments. A portion of the research came from Sakkaff's master's thesis, which was honored with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering's 2017 Outstanding Master's Thesis Award. Learn more about this honor.
BSE's Yiqi Yang co-authors book on lightweight composites
Yiqi Yang (pictured), Charles Bessey Professor of biological systems engineering and of textiles, merchandising and fashion design, and Helan Xu, research assistant professor of textiles, merchandising and fashion design, served as co-editors of the book "Porous Lightweight Composites Reinforced with Fibrous Structures." The publication offers a comprehensive overview of the raw materials, processing technologies, performance properties and applications of lightweight composites.
Yong-Rak Kim, civil engineering team win ISMRTI Best Paper Award
Yong-Rak Kim, professor of civil engineering, and civil engineering Ph.D. students Madieh Khedmati and Hani Alanazi, were honored with the Best Paper Award at the 2017 International Conference on Maintenance and Rehabilitation of Constructed Infrastructure Facilities. Held July 19-21 in Seoul, South Korea, the conference is an annual event for the International Society for Maintenance and Rehabilitation of Transport Infrastructures. The paper, titled "Nanomechanical Properties of Interphase Zone in Fly Ash-Based Cementitious Mixture," featured recent outcomes that demonstrate a scientific linkage between nanoscale fundamental properties of civil/building materials and sustainable infrastructure engineering. The outcomes are from a research grant sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
Yang earns Early Stage Investor Project award
Ruiguo Yang (above), assistant professor of mechanical and materials engineering, earned an Early Stage Investor Project award from the Nebraska Center for Integrated Biomolecular Communication (NCICB). Yang and Limei Zhang, assistant professor of biochemistry, earned the ESIP awards. Along with partner Armen Petrosyan, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and other researchers, the center focuses on aspects of biomolecular communication within and between cells and tissues. The center's long-term goal is to foster the development of collaborative research teams with broad disciplinary representation to interrogate complex disease pathways.
Four engineering students chosen to 2017 Franco's List
Four engineering students are among the 30 University of Nebraska-Lincoln students chosen to the 2017 Franco's List and honored at an April 19 awards ceremony. Those engineering students are:
Tyler Barker, sophomore, computer engineering
Julian Davis, junior, chemical engineering
Josiah Johnson, sophomore, biological systems engineering
Nick Underwood, senior, mechanical engineering.
Franco's List awardees represent six building blocks of character: caring, citizenship, commitment, dependability, open-mindedness and respect.
All of the recipients were nominated by a university community member and were ultimately selected by a council of their peers, the vice chancellor for student affairs' Character Council.
Pierobon named 2017 IEEE INFOCOM Best Paper Award Runner-Up
Massimiliano Pierobon, assistant professor of engineering and computer science, was named the 2017 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' INFOCOM Best Paper Award runner-up. The paper, "A Parity Check Analog Decoder for Molecular Communication Based on Biological Circuits," was the result of research work done in collaboration with the Politecnico di Milano in Milan, Italy. Pierobon also worked on the study with Alessio Marcone, a master's student who worked on his thesis in Pierobon's laboratory in 2016. About 1,500 papers are submitted to the INFOCOM conference for oral presentation each year; two are selected for distinction.