2012 Auburn Engineering Annual Report

2012 ANNUAL REPORT S A M U E L G I N N CO L L E G E O F E N G I N E E R I N G

from the dean In this publication, I am pleased to share with you just a few of Auburn Engineering’s achievements from the past year. I officially began my duties as dean mid-year, and I continue to be impressed with the standard of excellence that has become the hallmark of engineering education and research within this college.

You will see that we have an outstanding student body that translates into innovative engineers who find meaningful solutions to today’s challenges. We have faculty members with demonstrated achievement and commitment to research that truly changes lives. We have given you just a glimpse of the groundbreaking work that our faculty and students are doing.

We will remain committed to elevating the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering to the next level of academic and research performance by building upon our reputation as one of our nation’s premier colleges of engineering. And while we achieved a number of successes in the past year, we set our sights on even higher levels of accomplishment for the future.

We have a bold vision to be the best student-centered engineering experience in America, and to do that, we must offer world-class undergraduate and graduate programs at the frontier of engineering education. This enables us to produce students who serve as exemplary leaders in

technological development and engineering practice that anticipates, and meets, the needs of tomorrow’s world.

Our goal to further enhance our annual research expenditures, while significantly increasing the number of doctoral degrees awarded and peer-reviewed papers published, will depend heavily on our ability to aggressively recruit, mentor, retain and support outstanding faculty who exemplify excellence and innovation in the pursuit of knowledge.

Our larger scope and breadth will be evident in our ability to and success in engaging in innovative research and technology that really matters to our society — research that addresses the grand challenges of our nation while improving our quality of life and industrial competitiveness.

These are the challenges that await us. I am confident that we will meet them. In the midst of today’s global outlook, we are building a future of innovation and change.

With warm regards,

Christopher B. Roberts

C O N TE N TS C yber Securi ty a nd Inf orma ti on Tec hnol og y

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E nv i ronment

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B i omed i c a l a nd P ha rma c euti c a l

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E nerg y

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Inf ra s truc ture a nd Tra ns p orta ti on

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Engineered M a teri a l s a nd Na notec hnol og y

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Numb ers

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Securing a virtual world

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CY BE R S E CUR ITY AND INF ORMAT ION T ECHNOL OGY

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ur nation’s challenge to keep digital information safe and secure is beyond question, and our growing need for cyber forensic experts is critical. Auburn University is a National Security Agency Center of Academic Excellence in both cyber security education and research — and we are meeting the challenge head on.

Drew Hamilton, alumni professor in computer science and software engineering and director of Auburn’s Information Assurance Center, is leading a multidisciplinary team of Auburn researchers to bolster education in cyber security and prepare the next generation of cyber security specialists.

“The world is using computers, but the world is not made up of computer scientists,” Hamilton says.

“As we move more and more into using shared databases, we need to defend cloud architectures to make them more secure because everything seems to stem from them nowadays. We need people who know how to safeguard information from unauthorized access.”

Since 2005, Auburn has received $5.3 million in funding for the National Science Foundation’s Scholarship for Service program (SFS), which offers

students the opportunity to conduct research in cyber security and information assurance. In return for their scholarships, recipients work for a federal, state, local or tribal government organization after graduation in a position related to cyber security for a period equal to the length of their scholarship.

Auburn’s most recent NSF grant of $122,000 to the SFS program will also enable Hamilton to assist Western New Mexico University in establishing a digital forensics academy. The goal of the academy is to enable minority students to be more competitive for positions in the federal government.

Hamilton awarded more than $100,000 in cyber scholarships to seven computer science and software engineering students under the NSF CyberCorps program, as well as one industrial and systems engineering student under the National Security Agency information assurance scholarship program.

Devin Cook, a doctoral student leading Hamilton’s lab, is working to leverage the benefits of cloud computing to ensure that cloud information is safe.

The servers store information on a virtual “cloud drive” that can be accessed by logging in through any computer.

“All cloud services are based on the concept of virtualization, where you run multiple ‘virtual machines’ on one physical computer,” he says.

“We’re working to ensure those virtual machines, and the data stored on them, are protected.”

Cook and his research team use artificial intelligence techniques to train a detector that monitors a virtual machine and seeks out suspicious activity. Once an intrusion has been detected, the computer can be paused to ensure that no further intrusions take place until the situation is reviewed.

“We are focusing less on keeping intruders out and more on keeping them from stealing useful information once they’re in the cloud,” he says. “It turns out that trying to avoid the intrusion itself is a losing battle. There will always be a way in.”

This technology is imperative in today’s age of digital bill payments, online forms that request social security numbers, and the constant flow of email. Cook points out that any service utilizing virtualization stands to gain from Auburn’s research.

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EN VI RO NM ENT

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n April 20, 2010, millions of gallons of crude oil flooded into the Gulf of Mexico when an oil rig exploded 52 miles southeast of Louisiana. Auburn civil engineering faculty members Prabhakar Clement and Joel Hayworth have been immersed in the Gulf Coast since the ramifications of BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster impacted Alabama’s beaches in June 2010.

Clement and Hayworth, along with their team of post-doctoral researchers, graduate and undergraduate students, are conducting field studies on Alabama’s beaches and in the nearshore waters off the coast to understand how Alabama’s beach systems are changing as a result of the presence of Deepwater Horizon oil. They conduct part of their work in a unique facility in

the Advanced Engineering Research Laboratory at Auburn, specifically designed to perform detailed experiments and chemical analyses of fresh and environmentally-weathered oil samples.

Following the arrival of Tropical Storm Lee in 2011, the team found that the chemical signatures of weathered oil samples washed up on the beaches from submerged mats offshore were essentially the same as the oil that first impacted Alabama’s beaches a year earlier. In September 2012, the researchers were on the beach before, during and after Hurricane Isaac slammed Alabama’s coastline.

The team’s research, conducted on more than 15 pounds of tar balls, again showed that tar balls and tar mat fragments found on Alabama’s beaches after Hurricane Isaac were nearly identical in

chemical makeup to the oil which first arrived on Alabama’s beaches in June 2010, more than two years earlier.

Results from the work being conducted at Auburn — and more importantly, on the beaches of Alabama — demonstrate that the potential for unknown ecological consequences related to the chemical toxicity of Deepwater Horizon oil is as important today as it was nearly three years ago when oil first impacted those beaches. This research has considerable implications, not only for the state of Alabama’s legal negotiations with BP, but also for the long-term health of much of the Southeast’s most valued beaches.

In the Aftermath 4

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BIOMEDICAL AND PHARMACEUT ICAL

Mending Hearts

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n Elizabeth Lipke’s lab, heart tissue is being created; and it is regenerative engineering, not science fiction.

Lipke, assistant professor of chemical engineering, and her team are designing injectable biomaterial scaffolds, templates for cell attachment and tissue formation that are an essential aspect of cardiac regeneration. These scaffolds are used to guide stem cells into becoming cardiomyocytes, the contracting cells that make up cardiac muscle, millions of which die following a heart attack.

Her project, “Injectable Biomimetic Scaffolds to Direct Stem Cell-Derived Cardiomyocyte Differentiation,” received a $400,000 grant through the National Science Foundation’s prestigious Faculty Early CAREER Development Program for her research designing engineered cardiac tissue and developing cardiac regeneration techniques.

“We are investigating how to give these cells the signals they need to progress from being immature cells to those more closely resembling adult cardiac cells, particularly with respect to their electrical function,” says Lipke. “We want them to be able to integrate with existing cells so they can contribute to successfully regenerating heart tissue.”

Lipke’s research could offer improvements to tissue engineering strategies and provide insight to fundamental fields such as transport phenomena, electrical signal processing and developmental biology. As part of her CAREER award plan, Lipke’s interdisciplinary project will also include participation from health educators interested in cardiac regeneration research, such as cardiac nursing students.

and women,” says Lipke. “Through regenerative engineering, we can improve the ability to repair damaged or diseased hearts, and provide patients the opportunity for both a longer and potentially better quality of life.”

Lipke, a graduate of Rice University and Johns Hopkins University, is the department’s third CAREER award recipient, following Mario Eden, department chair in chemical engineering, and Virginia Davis, Mary and John H. Sanders associate professor in chemical engineering, who received CAREER awards in 2006 and 2009, respectively.

“Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States each year for both men 7

E N ER G Y

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uburn has established a track record of expertise in biorefining research and education that is advancing technologies that help produce fuels and chemicals from a wide range of bioresource feedstocks. And now, those experts are preparing tomorrow’s leaders in the sustainable production of biofuels and chemicals.

Through a collaborative $3 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation, Auburn is instructing more than 30 doctoral students in the field. The grant, an Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT), is Auburn’s first. Exploring bioenergy is integral to Auburn’s strategic plan, and researchers in the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, as well as across campus, are uniquely suited to lead this effort.

The collaborative project, “IGERT: Integrated Biorefining for Sustainable Production of Fuels and

Chemicals,” is led by Mario Eden, department chair and McMillan professor of chemical engineering.

An interdisciplinary team of co-principal investigators includes Chris Roberts, dean of the College of Engineering, and Uthlaut professor, and Steve Taylor, director of Auburn’s Center for Bioenergy and Bioproducts and department head in biosystems engineering. P.K. Raju, Walter professor in mechanical engineering, and Tom Gallagher, associate professor in the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, round out the team.

Biomass-derived products are considered nearly carbon dioxide-neutral and may reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lessening the effects of global warming. By reinvigorating major manufacturing sectors such as the pulp and paper industry, Auburn’s research team believes that these new technologies could strengthen local, regional and national economies, as well as decrease the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.

Auburn’s program provides student scientists and engineers the opportunity to gain interdisciplinary knowledge and technical expertise. They gain experience interacting with industry and working on global emerging technologies for technically viable, efficient, economical and environmentally sustainable energy solutions.

Students funded by the IGERT program have the opportunity to work in several highly specialized bioenergy research labs on campus, offering not only a boost to Auburn’s programs, but also to the students’ research experience.

Opposite page, from left: the first cohort of doctoral students on the IGERT grant include William Yantz, chemical engineering, Robert Herring, chemical engineering, Nicholas Klann, chemistry, Andrew Damiani, chemical engineering, Alexander Haywood, chemical engineering, David Roe, chemical engineering, Patrick Bass, materials engineering, Charlotte Stewart, chemical engineering, Gifty Acquah, forestry.

engineers fuel tomorrow 8

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testing the track 10

INFR AS TRUCT URE AND T RANSPORTAT ION

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esearchers at Auburn University’s National Center for Asphalt Technology (NCAT) are gaining an understanding of the wear and tear on our nation’s roadways in a fraction of the time. By lapping heavily loaded tractor-trailers on NCAT’s 1.7 mile test track for 16 hours a day, six days a week, they are accelerating the lifetime use of a roadway into just a few years.

This is the fifth testing cycle for the track, which continues through 2015, and incorporates a total of 45 asphalt sections being sponsored by highway agencies and private industry. In addition to the 20 new sections added over the past year, 25 remain in place from the fourth research cycle for further evaluation.

Fifteen of the older test sections will be evaluated for mix performance — the recipes used in formulating the asphalt sections — while 10 are structural sections designed to test construction methodologies. The new sections include 11 mix performance and nine structural sections.

In an innovative new study, four sponsors (Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee

DOTs) are supporting a group experiment known as the Green Group. This study will compare the performance and structural responses of test sections using recycled materials, with the goal of reducing initial pavement costs and extending pavement life.

The study will combine high levels of recycled content mixtures in several sections. As such, it will have significant implications for track sponsors needing to stretch transportation dollars — a challenge that has garnered a great deal of interest in track sponsorship this cycle.

All of the mixes used in the Green Group were produced using warm mix asphalt (WMA) technologies to reduce energy use. As well, a control section uses recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) typical of current specifications — 20 percent in the surface layer and 35 percent in the intermediate and base layers.

A second section has a stone matrix asphalt (SMA) surface layer containing 25 percent RAP, a highmodulus intermediate layer with 50 percent RAP, and a strain-tolerant base layer containing 35

percent RAP with a highly modified asphalt binder.

The third Green Group section has an SMA with 5 percent post-consumer shingles but no added fibers. The intermediate layer contains RAP and recycled shingles resulting in a 50 percent recycled binder content. The base layer for this section was also designed to be more strain tolerant than the control section base. It contains 25 percent RAP. The fourth section has been designed to optimize the use of ground tire rubber, with a stone matrix asphalt layer containing the recycled rubber. The high-modulus intermediate layer has 35 percent RAP and a ground tire rubber binder; the base layer is a strain-tolerant asphalt-rubber mix with 20 percent rubber by weight of asphalt.

“State DOTs want to consider materials that will reduce the cost of pavement construction, but they need to implement changes in a way that does not negatively impact pavement life,” says Buzz Powell, test track manager. “Dwindling funding is forcing states to implement pavement preservation. The track is a tool that allows them to do that.”

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E NGINE E R E D MAT ERIAL S AND NANOT ECHNOL OGY

Waste Not, Want Not

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he idea of waste, and its implications for our world, has triggered the emergence of environmental sustainability and numerous applications to improve quality of life. No message could be clearer in Maria Auad’s, a faculty member in polymer and fiber engineering, lab.

Auad is exploring a shift from using petroleumbased plastics to green nanobiocomposites, which would not only use less petroleum, but would also create less waste in U.S. landfills.

Today, glass, carbon and Kevlar are made using high-performance advanced composites, such as thermoset polymers and man-made fibers, which are non-biodegradable polymers derived from petroleum that add to the high U.S. demand for the expensive commodity. Auad’s team hopes to make

an impact by reducing dependence on petroleum products and using waste products to produce engineered materials.

New technologies and advancements in engineering research, such as the development of composite filler materials from waste and organic sources for use in manufacturing, like those being developed by Auad’s team, are steering a turn toward the creation of sustainable biomaterials that are environmentally friendly as well as less dependent on petroleum.

focuses on the development of new bionanomaterials from natural resources and waste products.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Center of Excellence in Nanobiomaterials Derived from Biorenewable and Waste Resources, or CREST, is a collaborative center led by Auad’s research team in studying the synthesis and characterization of nanobiomaterials, biopolymers and nanobiocomposites, determining how these environmentally friendly structures can best be used as an alternative to non-biodegradable synthetics.

She has partnered with researchers at Tuskegee University, the University of Alabama-Birmingham and Cornell University to develop a center for biorenewable nanobiomaterials research. The center

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42%

ACADEMIC PROGRAMS

STUDENTS Enrollment

Undergraduate 4,157

853 Total 5,010 Graduate

Undergradua te

Aerospace Engineering Biosystems Engineering Chemical Engineering Civil Engineering Computer Science and Software Engineering Electrical and Computer Engineering Industrial and Systems Engineering 23 81 Mechanical Engineering 47 Aerospace Biosystems Chemical Materials Engineering Polymer and Fiber Engineering Wireless Engineering

Freshman Class Snapshot

n 998 students

n Average ACT/SAT

28.5/1240 n Average High School GPA 3.86 n Comprises 26% of Auburn University’s

freshman class

MINORS

Automotive Engineering and Manufacturing Systems Business-Engineering-Technology Computer Science Information Technology Materials Engineering Materials Science 129 Power 171 129 Systems 146 16 Nuclear Generation Computer Electrical Industrial Mechanical Polymer Tribology and Lubrication Science

109 Civil

Science and and Computer Software

ent by m ajo ollm r n 68 156 r e 109

975

364

132 559

and Systems

DID YOU KNOW? Auburn Engineering students and Fiber traveled to the mountains of Quesimpuco, Bolivia, to develop and implement a gravity-fed irrigation system and a hydroponics demonstration unit designed to improve crop production

Pre-Engineering Aerospace

Biosystems Chemical Civil

Computer Science and Software Electrical and Computer

35

Industrial and Systems

289 514 503

487

Materials

n Auburn Engineering is the largest program

Polymer and Fiber

college at Auburn University

Mechanical Wireless

in the state of Alabama, and the largest

n Auburn Engineering‘s undergraduate

program is ranked 30th among the

nation’s top public institutions according to U.S. News & World Report

14

6.4%

2.7%

13.6%

GRADUATE

STUDENTS

Enrollment

Civil

18.6%

PhD 397

Total 853

Auburn Engineering’s

Polymer and Fiber DID YOU KNOW? 6.4% Auburn Engineering students are preventing water-borne diseases in impoverished countries with portable water purifying systems they developed utilizing electricity and salt to produce chlorine compounds that eliminate viruses, bacteria and protozoa

42%

graduate program is ranked

to U.S. News & World Report

23

81

AUBURN ENGINEERING

109 Civil

129

171

Online Graduate Program

n 282 active students from states, 6834 156 Canada, China, Korea, Great Britain 364 109 and various U.S. military installations 132 975 n 2012 course registration:

459 Summer 254 35 Fall 535 289 n

2012 graduates 74 503

146

16

Computer Electrical Industrial Mechanical Polymer Science and and and Fiber and Computer Systems Software

ONLINE PROGRAM

Spring

129

Electrical and Computer Mechanical

public institutions according

47

Computer Science and Software Industrial and Systems

40th among the nation’s top

Aerospace Biosystems Chemical

Aerospace Chemical

3.2%

MS 456

Graduate enrollment by department

11.9%

559

514

DID YOU KNOW? Auburn Engineering’s Pre-Engineering online graduate Aerospace engineering program was Biosystems ranked 6th in the nation Chemical in U.S. News & World Civil Report’s 2013 Best Online Computer Science and Software Engineering Electrical and ComputerEducation IndustrialPrograms and Systems rankings Materials

Continuing Education Programs

n 94 live seminars and conferences

serving 3,301 customers

n 104 distance continuing education

courses delivered by DVD or streaming video serving 1,321 students in

50 states and international locations

Mechanical

Polymer and Fiber

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FACULTY

DID YOU KNOW? With recent facilities renovations and new construction, Auburn Engineering now boasts: Classroom space 36,162 sq. ft.

Teaching laboratories 90,651 sq. ft.

Research laboratories 173,003 sq. ft.

n 148 tenure/tenure track faculty

n 27 non-tenure track faculty

n 63 named professorships and endowed chairs

RESEARCH

DID YOU KNOW? Auburn Engineering accounted for 36.4% of the university’s total research expenditures

n Ranked 44th in the nation in research expenditures by the American Society for Engineering Education

by Depart s e me r 1.6% n itu 13.6%

2.7%

11.9%

t

earch Exp R es en d

n $57.4 million in research expenditures

Aerospace

n Ranked in top 50 in research

expenditures for the past six years

Chemical

3.2%

Civil

18.6%

Computer Science and Software Electrical and Computer Industrial and Systems Mechanical

42%

6.4%

Polymer and Fiber

Strategic Research Areas n Energy and Environment n Cyber Security and Information Technology n Infrastructure and Transportation n Biomedical and Pharmaceutical n Engineered Materials and Nanotechnology n Advanced Manufacturing

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PHILANTHROPY $21,285,708 Goal $13,000,000 Goal exceeded by $8,285,708 Raised

Individuals Corporations Foundations Other Organizations

2012 fundrasing efforts

Do no

rs

type y b

Student support Annual

$1,957,189

Endowed

$1,619,115

Total

$3,576,304

Faculty Support Endowed

$121,009

Total

$121,009

Program Support Annual

$5,662,434

Endowed

$11,792,788

Total

$17,455,222

Facilities Support Annual

$133,172

Total

$133,172

Total Raised

OUTREACH

n E-Day – open house that introduces thousands of middle and high school students to Auburn Engineering n Engineering Summer Camps – residential summer programs for 8th-12th graders, offering hands-on engineering experience n Robo and Computer Camps – day camps targeted at increasing computer literacy for 5th-12th graders n KEMET Academy (Knowledge and Excellence in Mathematics, Equilibrium and Technology) – summer academy that introduces minority high school students to courses that prepare them for graduation and college entrance exams

$21,285,708

DID YOU KNOW? Auburn University served as the site of the South’s regional hub for BEST Inc., the nation’s third largest K-12 robotics program, serving 12,500 students from 850 schools in 15 states

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Nonprofit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Permit #530 Montgomery, AL

Samuel Ginn College of Engineering 1301 Shelby Center 735 Extension Loop Auburn, AL 36849-7350

Auburn University is an equal opportunity educational institution/employer.

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