News

Swift Testifies Before Congress

Dr. Andy Swift, professor of civil engineering and director of the Wind Science and Engineering Research Center, was one of several experts to testify recently before a U.S. House hearing of the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, a subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Technology. The focus of the hearing was on legislation to increase federal funding of wind and solar research.

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Faculty Recognitions

New Faculty Members

Tewodros Ghebrab was hired as an assistant professor in the Department of Construction Engineering and Engineering Technology on July 16.

Staff Recognitions

New Staff Members

Sharon Smith was hired as the Executive Associate to the Dean in the Dean's Office effective August 1.

Grants and Contracts

06-17-2009 - 07-28-2009

Chemical Engineering

• Dr. Brandon L. Weeks was awarded $63,750 by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security/Northeastern University. The title of the proposal was "ALERT: Awareness and Localization of Explosives-Related Threats."
• Dr. Gregory B. McKenna was awarded $180,000 by the U.S. Department of Energy. The title of the proposal was "Cyclic Macromolecules: Rheology and Flow Induced Crystallization."
• Dr. Brandon L. Weeks was awarded $19,775 by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. The title of the proposal was "In-Situ Atomic Force Microscopy of PETN Crystal Growth and Coarsening."
• Dr. Gregory B. McKenna was awarded $10,750 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. The title of the proposal was "JPS - Physics."
• Dr. Gregory B. McKenna was awarded $50,000 by the American Chemical Society - Petroleum Research Fund. The title of the proposal was "JPS - Physics."

Computer Science

• Dr. Yu Zhuang was awarded $200,000 by the National Science Foundation. The title of the proposal was "PIRE-Simulation of Electronic Non-Adaibatic Dynamics for Reactions with Organic Macromolecules, Liquids, and Surfaces."
• Dr. Eunseog Youn was awarded $33,795 by Research and Testing Laboratories, LLC. The title of the proposal was "Supervised and Unsupervised Machine Learning Approaches in Microbial Diversity Analysis ."

Center for Pulsed Power and Power Electronics

• Drs. James C. Dickens and Andreas A. Neuber were awarded $149,000 by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. The title of the proposal was "VUV Instrumentation DURIP (Barker/NE)." Neuber is the PI.

Electrical and Computer Engineering

• Dr. Mary C. Baker was awarded $137,908.25 by the National Science Foundation. The title of the proposal was "GK-12: Building Bridges: Integrating Mathematics, Science, and Engineering Education on the South Plains."
• Dr. Donald Lie was awarded $75,000 by US Navy SPAWAR. The title of the proposal was "RF/Analog IC and System-on-a-Chip (SoC) Design Exploiting Nonlinear Dynamics Physics."
• Drs. Mary C. Baker, Tanja N. Karp, and Brian S. Nutter were awarded $42,105 by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. The title of the proposal was "VUV Instrumentation DURIP (Barker/NE)." Karp is the PI.

Industrial Engineering

• Dr. Mario Beruvides was awarded $9,974 by Texas State Technical College - Harlingen. The title of the proposal was "Dual/Concurrent Enrollment Research Project (Calvo)."
• Dr. James L. Smith was awarded $42,000 by The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The title of the proposal was "Occupational Ergonomics Training Grant - 2009 ."

Nano Tech Center

• Drs. Hongxing Jiang and Jingyu Lin were awarded $150,000 by the U.S. Army Research Office. The title of the proposal was "Erbium Doped III-Nitride Nano-Photonic Structures Grown on Si by MOCVD."

Water Resources Center

• Dr. Kenneth A. Rainwater was awarded $90,918 by the Texas Water Development Board. The title of the proposal was "Assessment of General Circulation Models for Water-Resources Planning Applications."

Whitacre College of Engineering Dean's Office

• Dr. A. Dean Fontenot was awarded $3,000 by Region XVII - Education Service Center. The title of the proposal was "Texas Tech T-STEM Center (Reg 17)."

Alumni

Charles Q. Brown Jr. Named Brigadier General

Charles Q. Brown Jr., a 1984 graduate of Texas Tech with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, has been promoted to Brigadier General in the United States Air Force.

General Brown graduated from Texas Tech as a distinguished graduate of Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps. He has held various squadron and wing level positions during operational assignments to include instructing in the F-16 Division, U.S. Air Force Weapons School. His staff tours include Aide-de-Camp to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Air Operations Officer, U.S. Central Command, and Deputy Chief, Program Integration Division, Directorate of Programs, Headquarters, U.S. Air Force. He has served as a fighter squadron commander, Commandant of the United States Air Force Weapons School, National Defense Fellow at the Institute for Defense Analyses, and Commander of the 8th Fighter Wing. Prior to his current assignment, Brown was the Director, Secretary of the Air Force and Chief of Staff Executive Action Group, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C.

Brown is a command pilot with more than 2,700 flying hours, including 81 combat hours.

Eric West Named TSPE Young Engineer of the Year

Eric West, P.E., a project engineer at Parkhill, Smith, and Cooper in Midland, Texas, has been selected as the 2009 Young Engineer of the Year for the State of Texas by the Texas Society of Professional Engineers. West earned a Master of Science and a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering at Texas Tech in 1998 and 1996, respectively.

West has served as the lead designer on many civil engineering projects for the Texas Department of Transportation, Midland Airpark, and the Midland Development Corp.

Events of Interest

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