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News

Li
Li

Li Receives $400,000 NSF CAREER Award

Dr. Changzhi Li, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, has received a $400,000 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation.

The project, titled "CAREER: Smart Radar Sensor for Pervasive Motion-Adaptive Health Applications," will develop smart portable radar sensors for pervasive motion-adaptive health care applications by monitoring the important physiological motion of human beings. It will solve some of the significant problems currently limiting microwave biomedical radar. This project will benefit from collaboration with National Instruments on both research and education. If successful, the smart radar sensor could be used for the monitoring and treatment of sleep apnea and sudden infant death syndrome.

The application of this research will benefit from collaboration with Dr. Carlos Torres' team in the TTUHSC Southwest Cancer Treatment and Research Center. The smart radar sensor may outperform other technologies in motion-adaptive tumor tracking during cancer radiotherapy in many anatomic sites.


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Kumar
Kumar

Researchers Explain How to Make the Hardest Metal Pliable

Researchers at Texas Tech and Yale University have discovered a way to predict and control the properties of metallic glasses, yielding a highly versatile material that looks like metal, is moldable like plastic, but stronger than steel.

Dr. Golden Kumar, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Texas Tech, and Dr. Jan Schroers, professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Yale University, have developed a model that can explain why some metallic glasses are always ductile or brittle, whereas others are sensitive to processing and aging. The model is based on the metallic glass' fictive temperature.

The study, “Critical fictive temperature for plasticity in metallic glasses,” is published in the journal Nature Communications and reveals that there is a critical fictive temperature to obtain a glassy state capable of plastic deformation. The study shows there is a critical cooling rate, based on the critical fictive temperature, for pliability in metallic glasses. If the glass is cooled more slowly than the critical cooling rate, it will be brittle.


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Student News

Commercial Build Team
Commercial Building Team
(L-R) Joseph Khaled, Kyle Hoelting, Matthew Fisher, Dr. Sangwook Lee (Coach), Eric Van-Dusen, Dan Graf, and Joseph Schattle

CEET Students Place in ASC Competition

The Texas Tech Commercial Building Team won first place in their division during the 2013 Associated Schools of Construction Region 5 Student Competition held in Dallas in February 2013. The team competed against 11 other teams from college construction programs located in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The competition required each team to complete a written solution to a construction management problem statement in 16 hours and then develop and execute a 40-minute presentation defending their written solution to a panel of judges. The panel of judges was composed of engineers, architects, owners, and contractors personnel who were directly involved in the actual project. Team members pictured at left included (L-R) Joseph Khaled, Kyle Hoelting, Matthew Fisher, Dr. Sangwook Lee (Coach), Eric Van-Dusen, Dan Graf, and Joseph Schattle.

Design-Build Team
Design-Build Team
(L-R) Caleb Lightfoot, Jake Maxton, Phillip Hamilton, Stephanie Bunt, Zach Sienkiel, Dr. Tewodros Ghebrab (Coach), and Marshall Clark

The Texas Tech Design-Build Team won second place in their division. The team competed against six other teams from college construction programs located in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Ireland, and Australia. Team members pictured at right included (L-R) Caleb Lightfoot, Jake Maxton, Phillip Hamilton, Stephanie Bunt, Zach Sienkiel, Dr. Tewodros Ghebrab (Coach), and Marshall Clark.

Clark Khaled
Clark Khaled

Two Texas Tech construction engineering students received recognition as Outstanding Individual Presenters. In each competition division, each school's six-person team was required to make a 40-minute presentation supporting and defending their written proposal. During these presentations, a special group of judges were designated to judge and identify the top three individual speakers from each division. Marshall Clark was awarded first place in the Design-Build Division of the competition and Joseph Khaled was awarded third place in the Commercial Building Division of the competition.


 


Gu
Gu

Gu Wins Best Student Paper Award

Changzhan Gu, an electrical engineering doctoral student, won the Best Student Paper Award at the 2013 IEEE Topical Conference on Bio-medical Wireless Technologies, Networks, and Sensing Systems (BioWireleSS). The title of the paper was: "Distortion Analysis of Continuous-Wave Radar Sensor for Complete Respiration Pattern Monitoring." National Instruments provided support to this research including NI PXI systems, a gift donation, and insightful technical discussions.


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Solomon and Vanapalli
Solomon and Vanapalli

Solomon Places in Society of Rheology Graduate Student Poster Competition

Deepak Solomon, a chemical engineering graduate student working under the supervision of Dr. Siva A. Vanapalli, assistant professor of chemical engineering, was awarded fourth place in the graduate student poster competition at the 84th Annual Meeting of The Society of Rheology in Pasadena, California in February 2013. The poster was titled "Measurement of hydrodynamic resistance due to purely elastic instabilities in curvilinear microchannels."


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Faculty News

Matis
Matis

Matis Named Recipient of Fulbright U.S. Scholar Grant

Dr. Tim Matis, associate professor of industrial engineering, is the recipient of a 2013-2014 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Grant. Matis will travel to Chile as a part of this grant.

The Council for International Exchange of Scholars, a division of the Institute of International Education, administers the Fulbright Scholar Program. The Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES), under a cooperative agreement with the United States Department of State, administers the Fulbright Scholar Program for faculty and professionals. Each year, the core Fulbright Scholar Program sends some 800 U.S. faculty and professionals to 155 countries to lecture, research, or participate in seminars. At the same time, approximately 800 foreign faculty come to the U.S. each year.





Fontenot
Fontenot

Fontenot Receives TLTC Faculty Spotlight Award

Dr. A. Dean Fontenot, senior director of the Texas Tech T-STEM Center, has been named a recipient of a Texas Tech Teaching, Learning, and Professional Development Center (TLTC) 2013 Faculty Spotlight Award. The award recognizes faculty members who have been involved with the center and used services, programs, workshops, software and more to creatively enhance their classes. This annual award features faculty members nominated by the TLPDC staff and recognizes individuals for their "above and beyond" efforts to connect with and engage students, and for their service to the TLPDC.

Fontenot's award is in recognition of her efforts with the Professional Communications for Engineers course that she teaches.




Staff News

Dr. Julo Warzywoda, Julie Farley, Glenna Andrews, Jeff Sammons, and Elizabeth Capps
(L-R) Dr. Julo Warzywoda, Julie Farley, Glenna Andrews,
Jeff Sammons, and Elizabeth Capps

Engineering Staff Members Win Six Awards

In January, the Texas Tech University Office of the Chancellor and Office of the President presented the Distinguished Staff Awards to six staff members of the Whitacre College of Engineering.

The event was held in the International Cultural Center's Hall of Nations. The Distinguished Staff Awards is a broad-based recognition program that rewards staff for hard work, enthusiasm and dedication to Texas Tech. The awards are highly competitive and serve to promote greater individual staff recognition across campus.

Recipients from the Whitacre College of Engineering included:

Staff MemberDepartmentAward
Juliusz Warzywoda Dean's Office Matador Award
Elizabeth Capps Dean's Office Matador Award
Mysti Digby Computer Science Masked Rider Award
Julie Farley Dean's Office President's Award of Excellence
Glenna Andrews Civil and Environmental Chancellor's Award of Excellence
Jeff Sammons Dean's Office Chancellor's Colonel Rowan Award for Execution

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Alumni News

Simek
Simek

Simek Receives ABOTA Lifetime Achievement Award

Patrick C. Simek, a 1971 B.S.M.E. graduate and a 1977 School of Law graduate, is the recipient of The American Board of Trial Advocates' (ABOTA) highest honor, the Lifetime Achievement Award. Simek is a longtime ABOTA member and Lubbock, Texas, lawyer. His ABOTA career began in 1991 when he was admitted into the invitation only association. He is a past president of the Lubbock Chapter and in 2005 was named TEX-ABOTA Trial Lawyer of the Year by the Texas chapters of ABOTA. He served as National President of ABOTA in 2002.

Simek joins only six others who have received the Lifetime Achievement Award, ABOTA's highest form of recognition honoring an individual whose leadership efforts have advanced the preservation of the right to trial by jury guaranteed by the Seventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.




Grants and Contracts

January 23, 2012 – February 26, 2013

Computer Science

  • Drs. Rattikorn Hewett and Akbar Siami Namin were awarded $266,648 by the National Science Foundation. The title of the proposal was "SFS: Capacity Building: Collaborative Project: Cyber-security Education for Community College Faculty in Texas."

Center for Multidisciplinary Research in Transportation

  • Dr. Moon-Cheol Won was awarded $8,000 by the TX Dept of Transportation. The title of the proposal was "To Help TxDOT Conduct Forensic Evaluations, Conduct Laboratory Test, Field Testing and Compile Information that will Help Improve our Pavement and Save Texas Money."

Center for Pulsed Power and Power Electronics

  • Drs. James C. Dickens, John J. Mankowski, and Andreas A. Neuber were awarded $276,102 by the U.S. Army/Lockheed Martin Corporation. The title of the proposal was "Compact Hard Tube Vircator System."
  • Drs. James C. Dickens and Andreas A. Neuber were awarded $190,000 by AFOSR/Univ of Wisconsin. The title of the proposal was "Counter HPM."

Electrical and Computer Engineering

  • Dr. Stephen B. Bayne was awarded $136,089 by Alstom Power Inc. The title of the proposal was "(NWI) Alstom - Grid Integration Phase 2."
  • Dr. Changzhi Li was awarded $400,000 by the National Science Foundation. The title of the proposal was "CAREER: Smart Radar Sensor for Pervasive Motion-Adaptive Health Applications."
  • Dr. Yu-Chun D Lie was awarded $388,479 by DARPA/Cobham Sensor Systems. The title of the proposal was "Microscale Power Conversion (MPC)-High-efficiency Broadband RF/MM Transmitter System, Circuits and Envelope/Supply Modulator IC Design using the Envelope Tracking (ET) Technique."

Mechanical Engineering

  • Dr. Jian Sheng was awarded $223,334 by the Gulf of Mexico Rsrch Initiative/UT Austin. The title of the proposal was "Consortium: The Impact of Biological, Physical and Chemical Processes on the Fate of Oil Spills- Bridging Small Scale Processes with Meso-scale Modeling."
  • Dr. Michelle L. Pantoya was awarded $62,500 by the Office of Naval Research. The title of the proposal was "Metal-hydride Based Reactive Material Composites."
  • Dr. Michelle L. Pantoya was awarded $99,952 by U.S. Army RDECOM. The title of the proposal was "Multiphase Combustion of Metalized Nanocomposite Energetic Materials."
  • Dr. Jungkyu Kim was awarded $49,439 by DOE/HJ Science & Technology Inc. The title of the proposal was "STTR Phase I: Portable Microfluidic Platform for Real-time, High Sensitive Detection and Identification of Trichloroethylene and Other Organochloride Compounds."
Events

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