Two National Academy Members Join Engineering Faculty

The Texas Tech University Whitacre College of Engineering has added two National Academy members to its faculty.

Dr. Chau-Chyun Chen is the new holder of the prestigious $7.5M Jack Maddox Distinguished Engineering Chair in Sustainable Energy and Dr. Fazle Hussain is now the President's Distinguished Engineering Chair.

Chen

At a news conference on Tuesday, March 26, 2013 at 11 a.m. in the McKenzie-Merket Alumni Center, the university will formally introduce Chen as the new Jack Maddox Distinguished Engineering Chair in Sustainable Energy.

Chen received his bachelor's degree in chemistry from the National Taiwan University in 1973, and his master's and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977 and 1980, respectively. He has published more than 100 scientific articles, book chapters and patents.

Chen is co-founder of AspenTech, where he currently serves as vice president of technology, and is responsible for science and technology innovations in AspenTech's process modeling business area. He is best known for his development of the electrolyte NRTL activity coefficient model widely used for modeling electrolyte solutions.

Hussain

Hussain received his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in 1963, and his master's and doctoral degrees from Stanford University in 1966 and 1969, respectively. He was a post-doctorate fellow at Johns Hopkins University, before joining the University of Houston in 1971, where he became Cullen Distinguished Professor, and director of the Institute of Fluid Dynamics and Turbulence in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Chen and Hussain are the second and third National Academy members on Texas Tech's faculty. Dr. Kishor Mehta, the former director of the Wind Science and Engineering Research Center who led a team that developed the Enhanced Fujita Scale implemented by the National Weather Service, also is a member for his studies of structural damage caused by windstorms and leadership in developing structural design standards for wind loads.

Texas Tech Among Best Graduate Schools

The Texas Tech University Edward E. Whitacre Jr. College of Engineering overall graduate engineering program and seven individual degree programs are ranked in the 2014 edition of Best Graduate Schools by U.S. News Media Group.

• The overall graduate engineering program is now tied for 97th among 199 programs nationwide.
• The Department of Chemical Engineering moved up to 60th in the Chemical category.
• The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is now 72nd in the Civil category.
• The Department of Computer Science ranked 121st in the Computer Science category.
• The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering moved up to 76th in the Electrical/Electronic/Communications category and 62nd in the Computer Engineering category.
• The Department of Industrial Engineering is now 49th in the Industrial/Manufacturing category.
• The Department of Mechanical Engineering is now 93rd in the Mechanical category.

Jiang

Jiang Named Horn Professor

Dr. Hongxing Jiang has been named a Paul Whitfield Horn Professor. This is the highest honor given to faculty members at Texas Tech. Jiang is one of six Horn Professors in the Whitacre College of Engineering:

• Dr. Hongxing Jiang
• Dr. Magne Kristiansen
• Dr. Gregory B. McKenna
• Dr. Kishor C. Mehta
• Dr. Sunanda Mitra
• Dr. Sindee L. Simon

Stochastic Challenge

Texas Tech Launches Stochastic Challenge

As a part of a National Science Foundation Transforming Undergraduate Education in Science (NSF-TUES) grant involving Texas Tech, Missouri University of Science and Technology, and the University of Texas - Pan American, Dr. Tim Matis, associate professor of industrial engineering, has developed a new tool called the Stochastic Challenge.

The tool is a resource for students or anyone wanting to learn more about applied stochastic processes and can be found at www.stochasticchallenge.org. The site includes video tutorials for learning how to apply stochastic processes in real-world contexts, a wiki-style encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and web-based calculators for performing common calculations. As a part of Matis' Fullbright grant in Chile, he will be expanding the Stochastic Challenge to include more videos based produced with Chilean companies in Spanish. The effort also includes a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/stochasticchallenge.

Gao

Gao Places in Polyolefins Conference Poster Contest

Siyang Gao, a fourth-year graduate student in the research group of Dr. Sindee L. Simon, P. W. Horn Professor and Whitacre Department Chair, won third place at the International Polyolefins Conference for her poster, titled "The Calorimetric Glass Transition of Single Polystyrene Ultrathin Films." The conference, which was held in Houston on February 23-27, 2013, attracted more than 600 participants and more than 40 poster presentations.

Juan Rodriguez, TJ Rosson, Courtney Pinnell, and Teo Hall

Texas Tech Wins Second in Power Across Texas Challenge

Texas Tech students took second place and won a $7,000 scholarship in the second annual Power Across Texas Energy Innovation Challenge, developing a comprehensive plan to bring electric power to the colonias of south Texas. The team proposed a multi-prong approach to addressing the social, economic, cultural and regulatory challenges facing the colonias, including the use of promotoras.

The team included Courtney Pinnell, Juan Rodriguez, Teo Hall, and TJ Rosson. Mentoring was provided by associate professor of electrical and computer engineering Dr. Stephen Bayne, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering Dr. Tim Dallas, associate professor of construction engineering and engineering technology Dr. Mukaddes Darwish, lecturer Marina Martinez, and grad student Neha Marathe.

Sheng

Sheng Helps With Important Discovery About Plankton

Dr. Jian Sheng, associate professor and Whitacre Endowed Chair in Mechanical Engineering, along with Drs. Brad Gemmell and Edward Buskey from the University of Texas at Austin have discovered new information that explains how tiny marine plankton overcome changes in the viscosity of ocean water. Using 3-D high speed holographic techniques developed by the Sheng lab at Texas Tech, the interdisciplinary team has found that these minute crustaceans actually change the movement of their swimming appendages in order to optimize escape swimming performance across natural thermal extremes.

Chemical Engineering

• Drs. Gregory B. McKenna and Brandon L. Weeks were awarded $75,000 by the Office of Naval Research. The title of the proposal was "Resolving the Complexity of Hot Spots Caused by Weak Energy Concentration and Coupling in Composite Energetic Materials."

Center for Multidisciplinary Research in Transportation

• Drs. Alon Kvashny, Hongchao Liu, Cynthia B. McKenney, Moon-Cheol Won, and Richard E. Zartman were awarded $30,224 by the TX Dept of Transportation. The title of the proposal was "Lubbock TxDOT IAC 05-1XXIA001." Liu is the PI.

Center for Pulsed Power and Power Electronics

• Drs. Stephen B. Bayne and Michael G. Giesselmann were awarded $187,500 by the U.S. Army Research Office. The title of the proposal was "Semiconductor Evaluation for EM Gun Applications."

Mechanical Engineering

• Drs. Jharna Chaudhuri and Yanzhang Ma were awarded $100,000 by DARPA/CalTech. The title of the proposal was "New Pathways towards Metastable Extended Solids through Moderate Pressure and Large Plastic Shear: Multiscale Simulation and Experiments." Ma is the PI.
• Dr. Michelle L. Pantoya was awarded $37,500 by the Office of Naval Research. The title of the proposal was "Resolving the Complexity of Hot Spots Caused by Weak Energy Concentration and Coupling in Composite Energetic Materials."
• Dr. Luciano Castillo was awarded $156,129 by NSF/Syracuse Univ. The title of the proposal was "System of System Approach and Uncertainty Mitigation/Exploitation for Wind Farm Design."

See a full listing of the college's events on the Engineering Master Calendar.

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