News

Five Distinguished Engineers Recognized

The Whitacre College of Engineering named Jeff Bayer, Dr. Mica Endsley, Thomas A. Harper, Allen D. Howard and Randy Howard as recipients of the 2010 Distinguished Engineer Award on April 9.

The Distinguished Engineer Award was established during the 1966-67 academic year to recognize the most outstanding alumni of the college. Since that time, 199 graduates have received this honor.

Recipients of the award must be distinguished in their profession, an inspiration to their peers and have demonstrated a continuing interest in areas outside the field of engineering.

“The Distinguished Engineer Award recognizes engineering alumni who combine exceptional career success with important contributions to society,” said Jon C. Strauss, interim dean of the college. “We are privileged to have these successful individuals serving as ambassadors of the Whitacre College of Engineering and Texas Tech.”

Texas Tech on the Cutting Edge of Autism Research

With a $500,000 gift enabling the use of emerging technology in the neuroimaging field, Texas Tech will be on the cutting edge of autism research.

The Whitacre College of Engineering and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering accepted the gift from Allen D. Howard, a 1978 electrical and computer engineering graduate, and his wife Linnie. The gift is from Autumn’s Foundation.

The existing lab within the department will be named Autumn’s Dawn NeuroImaging, Cognition and Engineering (NICE) Laboratory. The NICE lab was formed in 2005 as a collaborative effort between the Whitacre College of Engineering and the College of Human Sciences.

U.S. News Graduate Engineering Ranking Improves

The Whitacre College of Engineering overall graduate engineering program and two individual degree programs have joined the elite ranks of U.S.News & World Report’s top engineering programs.

The overall graduate engineering program moved up to a ranking of 99th among 198 programs nationwide. The Department of Industrial Engineering ranked 29th in the Industrial/Manufacturing category and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering ranked 66th in the Electrical/Electronic/Communications category.

“We are pleased to have our programs listed among the best programs in the nation,” said Jon C. Strauss, interim dean of the Whitacre College of Engineering. “As Texas Tech University advances toward attaining tier one status, these rankings affirm the hard work our faculty are putting into both classroom instruction and their innovative research.”

Student Mentors Help Robotics Team Advance to National Competition

With the help of engineering student mentors, the Llano Estacado RoboRaiders advanced to the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Championship on April 15-17 in Atlanta.

The team advanced after a win at the 2010 J.C. Penney Dallas FIRST Robotics regional competition held in March at Southern Methodist University.

The Dallas competition challenged 57 teams from seven states and Mexico to build a robot that could compete in a unique robotics game called Breakaway. The game included aspects of soccer in which the robots were required to kick, shoot or throw soccer balls into a net while battling other competition robots.

Faculty Recognitions

Engineering Elephants

Dr. Michelle Pantoya, associate professor of mechanical engineering, recently co-authored a children’s book published by Author House called Engineering Elephants. The book introduces the concepts of engineering to young children. She co-authored the book with Dr. Emily Hunt, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at West Texas A&M University.

Grants and Contracts

03-16-2010 - 04-18-2010

Chemical Engineering

• Dr. Sindee L. Simon was awarded $120,000 by the National Science Foundation. The title of the proposal was "Tg Changes, Surface Effects, and Dynamics in Nanoconfined Polymers."

Center for Pulsed Power and Power Electronics

• Dr. Michael G. Giesselmann was awarded $84,998 by AFOSR/University of Texas Austin. The title of the proposal was "MURI Distributed Railgun Development for Affordable Space Access."

Electrical and Computer Engineering

• Dr. Donald Lie was awarded $75,000 by Texas Instruments Foundation. The title of the proposal was "Analog Design Research for TI."
• Dr. Brian S. Nutter was awarded $27,719 by Innovative Integration. The title of the proposal was "Efficient Burst OFDM."
• Dr. Donald Lie was awarded $20,000 by III-N Technology, Inc. The title of the proposal was "The CMOS Driver Integrated Circuit (IC) Design for Microdisplays Based on InGaN/AlGaInP Semiconductor Micro-emitter Arrays."
• Drs. Hongxing Jiang and Jingyu Lin were awarded $159,524 by the National Science Foundation. The title of the proposal was "ARRA-Bridging the Miscibility Gap in InGaN Alloys."

Industrial Engineering

• Dr. Shiren Wang was awarded $15,000 by 3M, Inc. The title of the proposal was "Understanding Organic Solar Cell Efficiency: Insight and Novel Solution."

Mechanical Engineering

• Dr. Michelle L. Pantoya was awarded $9,000 by Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC. The title of the proposal was "Examining Nanocomposite Thermite Combustion in Aqueous Environments."
• Dr. Stephen Ekwaro-Osire was awarded $1,600 by the Texas Space Grant Consortium. The title of the proposal was "Exercise Device for the Crew Exploration Vehicle."
• Dr. Michelle L. Pantoya was awarded $6,000 by the U.S. Army Research Office. The title of the proposal was "Fundamental Thermochemistry Analyses of Gas Phase Chemistry from Nanoenergetic Material Formulations."
• Dr. Michelle L. Pantoya was awarded $78,177 by DOD/DTRA/University of Texas. The title of the proposal was "Impact Driven Reactions in Select Thermites and Reactive Materials."
• Dr. Yanzhang Ma was awarded $75,646 by Dept. of Army/Iowa State Univ. The title of the proposal was "Phase Transformations in Ceramics under Compression and Shear."
• Dr. Yanzhang Ma was awarded $75,000 by DOD/DTRA/Iowa State University. The title of the proposal was "Search for New Highly Energetic Phases under High Pressure and Shear."

Nano Tech Center

• Dr. Ayrton Bernussi was awarded $6,000 by the National Science Foundation. The title of the proposal was "ANN/NIRT: Nano-Engineering Efficient Optoelectronic Devices."

Student Accomplishments

National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship

Jonathan Foster, a doctoral student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has been awarded a prestigious National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship by the Department of Defense (DoD). His application has been selected by the U.S. Navy from over 2,600 applications. His fellowship will cover full tuition and fees for three years.

“Jonathan Foster is among an elite group of graduate students,” said interim dean Jon C. Strauss, “This prestigious award is an acknowledgement of the quality of our graduate students and a recognition of the significant research activities in the Center for Pulsed Power and Power Electronics and the Whitacre College of Engineering.”

2010-2011 ConocoPhillips Spirit Scholars Announced

The 2010-2011 ConocoPhillips SPIRIT Scholars have been announced, and nine Whitacre College of Engineering students have been selected. The ConocoPhillips SPIRIT Scholars program provides educational opportunities and professional development for qualified students through scholarships, activities, mentoring, and career opportunities.

The 2010-2011 Spirit Scholars from the Whitacre College of Engineering are:

Texas Tech Wins Region 5 IEEE Circuit Design Competition

Texas Tech electrical engineering students Cliff Schecht and Aric Wax recently won the Circuit Design Competition at the 2010 IEEE Region 5 Green Technologies Conference at the University of North Texas. Teams were challenged to use LED lights, compositors, and resistors to create a switch to turn off the lights of a building at the sound of a whistle. The Texas Tech team won first place and $500, Oklahoma Christian University placed second, and the University of New Orleans placed third. Sky Schoggins and Aaron Stroman placed third in the Student Ethics Competition at the conference.

Alumni

Three Inducted into the Texas Tech Academy of Industrial Engineers

Three Texas Tech University industrial engineering alumni were inducted into the Texas Tech Academy of Industrial Engineers at an awards banquet held on Friday, April 9. The Texas Tech Academy of Industrial Engineers was established in 1991 and currently has 108 members. Each year, the academy recognizes outstanding alumni who have distinguished themselves in the field of industrial engineering and who have made significant contributions to the profession. The following individuals were honored this year:

Dr. Georges Abdul-Nour (Ph.D. 1991), professor and dean of engineering, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Trois-Rivières, Qc, Canada.

Henning Oeltjenbruns (M.S.I.E. 1993), plant manager and vice president of Detroit Diesel Corporation in Redford, Michigan, a subsidiary of Daimler Trucks.

Glenn Walser (B.S.I.E. 1960), chairman of the board, Automated Food Systems, Inc., Duncanville, Texas.

Events of Interest

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