Engineer Fall 2010 by Boston University College of Engineering

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10 Inside: Downsized Diagnostics Instant Messenger

Intelligence Added How Systems Engineers Are Designing a Better World.

windmill

utility substation

solar panel transformer

a/c

smart meter

plug-in vehicle

smart appliance

Stay Connected to the College of Engineering Join the ENG online community! Post, tag, tweet, ask questions, reconnect with alumni and watch engineering videos. Stay upto-date on the most recent happenings, including networking opportunities, job fairs, seminars and other employment events. www.facebook.com/BUCollegeofENG www.twitter.com/BUCollegeofENG www.youtube.com/BUCollegeofENG

44 Cummington Street Boston, MA 02215

Selim Ünlü, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Programs

Kenneth R. Lutchen, Dean

Richard Lally, Assistant Dean for Administration

Solomon R. Eisenberg,

Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs

Engineering Leadership Advisory Board

Boston University Alumni Weekend October 29–31, 2010 College of Engineering Events Thursday, October 28, 2010 Photonics Center, 8 St. Mary’s Street, Room 206 3 p.m. Presidential Lecture on Clean Energy & Environmental Sustainability “Where in the World Will Our Energy Come From?” Featuring Nathan S. Lewis, George L. Argyros Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology To register and for more information, visit www.bu.edu/energy/newsevents/ pres-lectures/lewis. Friday, October 29, 2010 Photonics Center, 8 St. Mary’s Street, Room 906 (Colloquium Room) 3:30 p.m. The 3rd Annual “Future of Engineering” Symposium Personalized “Intelligent” Medicine: How Engineering, Technology, Innovation and Public Policy Challenges Will Impact Your Health Care Featuring keynote speakers James J. Collins, William F. Warren Distinguished Professor and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University, and George Savage, MD, co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Proteus Biomedical 5 p.m. College of Engineering Distinguished Alumni Awards Ceremony & Reception Come congratulate ENG alumni who have made significant contributions to their profession, community and alma mater. Winners will include the recipient of the inaugural ENG Young Alumni Distinguished Award.

John E. Abele Gregg Adkin ’86 Alan Auerbach ’91 Roger A. Dorf ’70 Ralf Faber Janie Fouke Ronald G. Garriques ’86 Norman E. Gaut Joseph Healey ’88 Jon K. Hirschtick Bill I. Huyett

Amit Jain ’85, ’88 Dean L. Kamen, Hon’06 Nick Lippis ’84, ’89 John Maccarone ’66 Venkatesh Narayanamurti Richard Reidy, SMG’82 Subra Suresh John Tegan ’88 John Ullo David Wormley

Fall 2010

Engineer Engineer Editor Michael Seele

Managing Editor Mark Dwortzan Staff Writer Kathrin Havrilla

Design and Production Boston University Creative Services Photography Boston University Photography, College of Engineering, Mark Dwortzan, except where indicated The BU College of Engineering magazine is produced for the alumni and friends of the Boston University College of Engineering. Please direct any questions or comments to Michael Seele, Boston University College of Engineering, 44 Cummington Street, Boston, MA 02215. Phone: 617-353-2800; fax: 617-353-5929; email: engalum@bu.edu; website: www.bu.edu/eng. 1010 035809

To register and for more information, visit www.bu.edu/alumniweekend. Please recycle

Inside

4 Cover Story

COVER: College of Engineering faculty and students are exploring the use of smart microgrids, cyber technologies and decision-making software to improve building energy consumption efficiency while increasing quality of service and clean energy generation. (Image courtesy of Boston University Clean Energy & Environmental Sustainability Initiative. Illustration by Denise Joseph and Phyllis McKee.)

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4 Smart(er) Solutions A systematic approach to complex world problems

F eat u res

Professor of Practice to Foster Biomedical Technology Development

Instant Messenger: Raj Manchanda Builds Results-Oriented High-Tech Communities

Downsized Diagnostics: Alum Advances Faster, Cheaper Blood Test

BME Celebrates 25th Anniversary of Senior Design Project Conference

Departments

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From the Dean Eng News Faculty News Honor Roll: Thank You for a Record Year Alumni Events In Memoriam

Engineering Is Not a Science By Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen

Engineers are not a subcategory of scientists. So often the two terms are used interchangeably, but they are separate, albeit related, disciplines. Scientists explore the natural world and show us how and why it is as it is. Discovery is the essence of science. Engineers innovate solutions to real-world challenges in society. While it is true that engineering without science could be haphazard, without engineering, scientific discovery would be merely an academic pursuit. We hear a lot about American students falling behind in math and science, but we rarely hear that we are lagging in engineering and in creating the innovative spirit. A good example of this confusion is found in a July 2010 issue of Time magazine that featured Thomas Edison on the cover. Although Edison was much more of an engineer than a basic scientist, the word “science” appeared 25 times in the article and “engineering” only four times. The first paragraph focused on a solar-powered car designed and built by third graders; the writer called it a science project. Public education in America has already begun to re-emphasize quantitative skills, but the Edisons of the 21st century will likely be those who pursue engineering rather than science. Of course, the subtext for asking questions about our students’ quantitative and science abilities is the future of America’s economic competitiveness in the age of technology. And while many important scientific discoveries are being made at American universities and companies, too often foreign manufacturers are reaping their economic benefits. We need to insure that Americans sustain a unique passion and capacity to translate our discoveries into new economic and quality-of-life values for society. Such passion rests at the soul of engineering. To ensure our discoveries benefit our economy in the coming decades, we need to excite our children about engineering and innovation, not just science. Over the past two years, College of Engineering staff and students have made presentations aimed at doing just that in Massachusetts high schools. We talk to students about the National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges, those extraordinary opportunities for profoundly impacting our quality of life. The students seem stunned to learn that engineers do not spend their days doing math and science isolated in cubicles, but rather work in teams of diverse professionals creating exciting new technologies that improve health care, enable alternative energy, make us safer, improve communication, enhance our social infrastructures, and so on. They are surprised to learn that an engineering education can holistically prepare them for leadership roles in organizations, even if they don’t remain practicing engineers for life. Once they learn what an engineer does, they are tremendously excited. Tellingly, their teachers are equally surprised by this perspective and this information, something that needs to change if we are to tap into kids’ innate creativity. But, it doesn’t take much to make a big difference. Recently, my daughter, a fifth grade teacher, invited me to talk about the process and concept of invention with her students. We discussed the greatest inventions of all time (among these fifth graders, only Edison’s lightbulb is more important than the portable DVD player). After I left, Ms. Lutchen asked the children to write me a thank-you card, without coaching them on what to say. Some excerpts: “Maybe I will make an invention one day,” “I learned a lot about how you can invent something by making it easier and cheaper or just inventing something no one has ever invented,” and, my favorite, “I love engineering and want to be an engineer when I grow up.” Nearly all of the kids’ notes had similar themes. I bring these up not to brag but because I am certain our field has produced many individuals with engineering degrees who could have conveyed a similar level of clarity and passion to these children. Just imagine if we scaled and amplified this approach nationally a bit more. We all must play a role in creating a pipeline of students who are excited about being the innovators of tomorrow. We stand at a crossroads as we look to the economic future of this country. With the right education and the right investments, this country will establish a pipeline of people driven to participate in the innovative advantage, and we will be an economic powerhouse for a long time to come.

BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

By Michael Seele

Professor of Practice to Foster Biomedical Technology Development The College of Engineering and the Technology Development Office at Boston University have taken another step to bring innovation from the laboratory to patient care by jointly appointing Arthur L. Rosenthal as Professor of Practice in Translational Research. Rosenthal, a longtime medical device industry executive and an adjunct faculty member in the College’s Biomedical Engineering Department (BME), will oversee biomedical engineering innovation efforts throughout the College and link them with the commercialization resources of BU’s Technology Development Office. Rosenthal has engaged in similar activities for the past four years as the project director of the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Translational Partnership Program in BME. The program funds “bench-to-beside” collaborative research that pairs Boston-area medical clinicians—including those at the School of Medicine—with biomedical engineers in an effort to bring promising biomedical technologies to clinical application. “Art Rosenthal’s background as a leader in industry and academia uniquely qualifies him for this important new position,” said College of Engineering Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen. “He will engage faculty in all depart-

ments who are working on innovation in biomaterials, biomedical optics and photonics, biomechanics and orthopedic engineering, bioacoustics and bioimaging, home health care monitoring systems, and nanotechnologies, to name a few, and link these promising research efforts with the resources that can bring them to patient care.” The professor of practice position is a hybrid of instructor and project manager serving the College of Engineering, but focusing on the medical device and biotechnology economic sectors. In addition to teaching courses regarding technology commercialization, Rosenthal will continue to have direct impact on translational research efforts in BME, the College of Engineering and the School of Medicine. He will also be responsible for interfacing with the Technology Development Office. “We are delighted to have Art join the Technology Development Office to support BU’s medical device commercialization activities,” said Vinit Nijhawan, the office’s managing director. “Art’s knowledge, insights and vast network of medical device companies will accelerate market adoption of bioengineering research at BU.”

Rosenthal is the former acting CEO and chairman of Labcoat, Ltd., a drug-eluting stent start-up that was acquired by Boston Scientific Corporation last year. He has also held senior management positions with Boston Scientific, Johnson & Johnson Medical, Inc., C.R. Bard, Davol, Inc. and other companies. He has been affiliated with BME since the late 1990s and has served as adjunct professor of translational research since 2005. Rosenthal holds a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “Thanks to the support received from the Coulter Foundation, we have been able to embed a sustainable translational research process within BME, which will now be extended to the College of Engineering,” said Rosenthal. “As professor of practice, I will be working closely with the chair of BME, dean of Engineering, the Technology Development Office and the faculty to build upon the Coulter translational research process already in place and broaden its impact of translational research throughout the BU engineering community. I commend the president and provost for their vision and support for the mission of translational research.”

Arthur Rosenthal (left) with BME Chairman and Professor Solomon Eisenberg at the BME 25th Senior Project Reunion Gala in April. A system that monitors diabetics’ insulin levels in real time is being developed by Professor Edward Damiano and is partly funded by a Coulter grant. Rosenthal is project director of the Coulter Program in BME.

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www.bu.edu/eng

By Mark Dwortzan

smart(er) solutions A systematic approach to complex world problems.

BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

[

When a cloud of ash from Iceland’s erupting Eyjafjallajökull volcano drifted across Europe last spring, several countries closed airspace

across northern Europe, forcing the cancellation of many flights. The effects of that air traffic shutdown—the largest since World War II— were felt not only in Europe, but throughout the world, stranding five million passengers and grounding or rerouting hundreds of

planes. It was a striking instance of how a single, unexpected event could massively disrupt a complex global system.

nconveniences caused by the volcanic ash could have been considerably reduced, however, by a comprehensive, well-coordinated contingency plan for alternative transportation, hotel arrangements and air traffic rerouting. In other words, by an automated system designed to get people from point A to point B in the shortest time, despite unpredictable and adverse conditions. This is precisely the domain of systems engineering, a burgeoning field aimed at maximizing the performance of “systems,” or collections of interacting parts that work together to perform a function that no single part can execute alone. Systems engineers mathematically model, simulate, analyze, optimize, control and manage systems so that they perform well in a wide range of scenarios. “The systems engineer’s core knowledge includes the ability to conduct rigorous mathematical modeling and simulation of interactions among different system components; assess the uncertainties under which a system operates and the risks to which it is exposed; and optimize system performance under those unpredictable conditions,” says Professor Christos Cassandras (ECE), head of the College of Engineering’s Division of Systems Engineering. “You cannot claim you’re a good systems engineer without understanding these underlying principles.” From its origins in World War II military operations to its golden age during the Apollo moon landings to its ubiquitous imprint on today’s global communications networks, systems engineering has come a long way. Initially focused on industrial and manufacturing operations, the field has grown to impact countless endeavors ranging from genetic engineering to interplanetary exploration.

At the College of Engineering, faculty members and graduate students in the Division of Systems Engineering and Boston University’s Center for Information & Systems Engineering [see page 8] are at the forefront of advancing this interdisciplinary field and applying it to solve major societal problems. Toward that end, the Division’s PhD, Master of Science and Master of Engineering degree programs expose students to systems engineering methods such as modeling, simulation, optimization and control, and research areas including automation and robotics, communications and networking, computational biology, information sciences and production systems. “These programs provide our students with a command of the fundamentals,” says Cassandras, “as well as opportunities to apply them in the design of sensor networks, unmanned aerial vehicles and other real-world systems.” Hailing from Indiana to Iceland, graduate students come to the Division of Systems Engineering to explore a variety of technologies and business processes from a systems perspective. Recent graduates have obtained influential positions in industry and academia across the globe, developing everything from simulation packages for leading software providers to mobile sensor networks for commercial and military applications. Focused on adding sufficient “intelligence” to complex systems to maximize their performance in uncertain environments, College of Engineering faculty and graduate students are taking aim at some of society’s grandest engineering challenges in security, health care, information systems, and clean energy and sustainability.

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www.bu.edu/eng

Security:

Smart Explosives Detection Airport luggage inspection machines scan one bag every six seconds, but the conventional medical imaging technology they use could easily overlook potential threats. That’s why Professor David Castañón (ECE) is working to equip these machines with a wider range of sensors and pattern recognition tools, and more sophisticated signal processing algorithms to analyze the data in real time. “We need to design a system that’s partially automated and where human intelligence gets used as needed to resolve ambiguities and produce highly reliable decisions,” says Castañón. “This involves several systems engineering tradeoffs: How much do you automate? What’s the algorithm you put in for making that decision? How do you generate alerts? What sensors do you bring to bear?” Since 2008, Castañón, fellow ECE professors Venkatesh Saligrama and Clem Karl, and five ECE PhD students have addressed these questions for potential applications ranging from whole-body imaging to video surveillance in a Department of Homeland Security initiative called Project ALERT: Awareness and Localization of Explosive Related Threats. Focused on systems engineering solutions, Castañón serves as associate director and Boston University principal investigator of the

project, which draws on experts from 15 academic institutions to improve the nation’s explosives detection capability. The BU team’s effort centers on mathematical problems in machine learning, optimization and image processing. “We model the capabilities of different sensors, develop algorithms to combine the information they gather to form decisions concerning the presence of a potential risk, and intelligently sequence sensor data to ensure that the system as a whole performs well,” says Castañón. One promising solution emerging from Castañón’s team is an “adaptive training” system that uses video cameras to monitor pedestrian and traffic behavior, and “learns” on the job to detect abandoned packages and vehicles by tracking changes in image pixels of sidewalks and streets. The team is also designing an intelligent sensor network system to monitor moving crowds with infrared cameras, chemical sniffers and other devices. The system tracks individuals’ locations and detects unusual behaviors and explosives in a nonintrusive yet reliable manner. “In explosives detection applications, most researchers focus on improving the performance of individual components, such as sharper imaging quality,” says Castañón. “We’re exploring ways of combining components and examining tradeoffs to see how different data streams can complement each other to get a more accurate system.”

One important tradeoff is between throughput and sensitivity. “The question of how to improve both throughput and sensitivity is at the heart of some of the novel pattern recognition and statistical learning techniques being developed at Boston University,” says Saligrama.

Health Care:

Smart Drug Design Cells do three fundamental things: take carbon building blocks and turn them into parts of the cell, convert mass to energy and encode genetic information on how to perform the first two functions. To accomplish these tasks, they rely on the cell’s regulatory network— dedicated proteins that turn genes on or off—and metabolic network, a distinct set of proteins that transform molecules into cellular structures and energy. Since 2008, Associate Professor James Galagan’s (BME) group and four collaborating research teams have been building molecular maps of the regulatory and metabolic networks of the bacterium that causes tuberculosis in a systematic effort to determine which proteins and genes in these networks trigger the disease. This knowledge could lead to simpler, faster, more targeted diagnostics and drugs for tuberculosis (TB), which accounts for up to three million deaths per year.

[ ] Using advanced modeling and algorithms, the ALERT team at BU aims to enable airport screening machines to provide three dimensional cross-sections of a bag so that individual items can be clearly separated. Images show top and back view of boom box and other objects. (Images courtesy of Prof. W. Clem Karl (ECE)) 6

BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria. Associate Professor James Galagan (BME) is taking a systematic approach to pinpointing the genes and proteins in the TB bacterium that trigger the disease. (Image courtesy of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Sensor with camera to detect parking spot status in intelligent parking systems.

Robotic Urban-Like Environment (RULE) with traffic lights, parking spots and cars for intelligent parking experimentation at the Control of Descrete Event Systems (CODES) laboratory.

“We want to understand this bug like we would understand a computer or a car or any other system that has interacting parts,” says Galagan. “Starting with the genome for this bacterium, we’re focused on the set of molecules, proteins and genes that allow TB to inflict damage on the human host.” To map out the bacterium’s regulatory network, Galagan and his collaborators apply genome sequencing technology to obtain a “circuit diagram” of the network’s 180 known transcription factors, interconnected proteins that activate or deactivate the approximately 4,000 genes that control the cell. Using an advanced synthetic biology technique, they next activate the transcription factors—individually and in groups, or “subcircuits”—to see which genes get turned on or off as a result. Finally, they integrate the data into a predictive computer model, which they use to simulate the bacterium’s regulatory circuitry and pinpoint promising gene and protein subcircuits to knock out. To investigate the cell’s metabolic network, Galagan’s team takes a similar approach: build a map connecting all proteins that catalyze metabolic reactions; perturb individual proteins and protein subcircuits; and produce a computational model.

“What’s unique about our approach to TB is that we’re trying to map out the terrain in a systematic, unbiased and comprehensive way, rather than focus on a select number of the 180 transcription factors,” says Galagan. “We believe it will work and produce a foundation that will allow us to think about infectious disease in a fundamentally different way that’s more quantitative, systems-oriented and comprehensive.”

INFORMATION SYSTEMS:

Smart City

Finding a desirable parking spot in any major city can be daunting, but systems engineers at BU are working on the problem. They envision a smart GPS system that not only provides directions to your next destination in a city, but also reserves the nearest available parking spot within a specified price range. You request “Colonial Theatre” and your maximum price point and walking distance, and the system takes care of the rest. Managing hundreds of simultaneous requests for vacant parking spots throughout the city, it directs you to the optimal choice. Not only do you arrive at your destination faster; the city benefits from reduced traffic

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Buses, police cruisers, garbage trucks and other city services depend on “intelligent dispatching.” ECE Professors Ioannis Paschalidis and Christos Cassandras have developed a sensor network to track the condition and location of forklifts operating in large commercial warehouses. The information is used to make more efficient dispatching decisions.

www.bu.edu/eng

[

CISE achievements range from novel image processing

techniques to advanced

computational methods in structural biology.

Innovation at the Edge BU’s Center for Information & Systems Engineering Sparks Interdisciplinary Research Collaborations Boston University’s Center for Information & Systems Engineering (CISE) is a virtual, umbrella organization that convenes researchers from across BU to investigate the design, analysis and management of complex systems. CISE faculty members and the students they advise reside in home departments predominantly in the College of Engineering, but also in the College of Arts & Sciences and School of Management. “Our faculty and graduate students speak a common technical language in quantitative methodologies to solve problems in different disciplines,” says CISE Associate Director Linda Grosser. “As a result, they have more opportunity to collaborate with people with common interests beyond the bounds of their own department.” CISE activities include ongoing research collaborations; a weekly seminar focused on systems engineering research conducted by scholars from all over the world; an annual research symposium; and industry collaborations and forums in sensor network, smart lighting,

smart grid and other emerging technologies. For example, in 2004, CISE created the BU Sensor Network Consortium, a collaborative forum to drive research, development, commercialization and adoption of sensor network technology. Since its founding in 2002 by a dozen College of Engineering professors, CISE has grown to represent 27 faculty members and 60 graduate students pursuing projects funded by the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense and other major federal agencies. CISE members have made seminal contributions in control systems, optimization and decision theory; applied probability and simulation; networking; information sciences; computational biology; and production systems. To date, major accomplishments include innovative techniques for assessing network and server performance and pricing Internet services, novel image processing techniques with applications in radar and biomedical imaging, new algorithms for machine learning and pattern recognition with applications in explosives detection, new computer simulation methodologies that have been adopted by leading software companies, and advanced computational methods in structural biology.

Prototype kit for visual light communication with LEDs. CISE faculty and students are advancing smart lighting technology at the NSF Smart Lighting Engineering Research Center at Boston University.

BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

Systems Engineering MS degree student/CISE researcher Jimmy Chan helped prepare a “smart light demo” for the NSF.

Urban electricity consumption during peak hours stresses the distribution utility infrastructure. Intelligent demand response and management of new environmentally friendly resources, such as electric vehicles and distributed clean generation, can remove the stress on infrastructure, improve efficiency and reduce costs. This is a major objective of Smart Neighborhood, a new NSF-funded research collaboration among researchers at Boston University and MIT and strategic private sector partners such as IBM and NSTAR. (Image courtesy of Boston University Clean Energy & Environmental Sustainability Initiative. Illustration by Denise Joseph and Phyllis McKee.)

congestion and accidents, and increased revenue through more efficient parking capacity utilization. ECE Professors Christos Cassandras and Ioannis Paschalidis and graduate student Yanfeng Geng have designed a preliminary version of this system that works in computer simulations and on the Robotic Urban-Like Environment (RULE) platform in the lab, and they plan to test it out at a BU parking garage. In one scenario, drivers would reserve parking spots equipped with metal columns that serve as barriers and submerge when vehicles with the proper wirelessly transmitted code approach. Each column would serve as a node in a sensor network that monitors parking spot occupancy and establishes reservations. “We’re trying to design sensor networks as a closed-loop control system that not only collects information but acts on it as well,” says Cassandras. “This is what will ultimately define the smart city.”

Toward that end, the researchers have developed a model of a dynamic parking resource allocation system. The system continuously monitors parking spot sensor data, vehicle locations and destination requests, and traffic conditions; optimizes a solution based on this constantly changing information; and measures the system’s performance in reserving the optimal parking spot and generating revenue for the city. This “intelligent parking” project is funded as part of a National Science Foundation grant aimed at developing “smart” systems that reconfigure themselves in response to unexpected events and fast-changing conditions. The BU team is one of five now pursuing ways to create “smart cities” that exploit ubiquitous wireless networking; collect information about the environment from distributed sensors; make optimal decisions about traffic, public transportation, communication, power consumption and other complexities of urban life; and invoke

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actuators to execute those decisions. Task requests may range from the routine—send robot to garbage can that’s almost full—to the urgent—dispatch personnel to water main that’s about to break.

CLEAN ENERGY AND SUSTAINABILITY:

Smart Grid

Environmentalists have long sought to reduce our fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by substituting electricity for oil in motor vehicles and replacing many of the electric power grid’s coal-fired plants with clean generation sources, such as wind and solar. To achieve that dual objective with today’s business-as-usual grid, however, is economically unfeasible; the intermittent and uncontrollable

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By adding intelligence to the grid, we could

nature of clean generation would require a sizable and prohibitively expensive expansion of the grid’s transmission and distribution networks, as well as its fossil fuel generation capacity reserves. Enter systems engineering. Professor Michael Caramanis (ME) argues that by adding intelligence to the grid, we could meet the supply-demand balance of an increasingly electrified transportation system without unsustainable expansion of the physical infrastructure. “We can change the cyber-physical mix of grid assets by investing optimally—more on cyber and less on physical assets. This will render system expansion costs affordable,” he maintains. Since 2008 Caramanis and PhD student Justin Foster have advanced a solution to do just that, using sophisticated decision support software algorithms to match the demand of a rising fleet of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) with the intermittent supply of power from distant wind farms. On the supply side, the algorithms forecast when the wind will blow and how much power it will generate, and translate this information into reserve requirements. On the demand side, the software directs PHEVs— while recharging their batteries overnight—to switch their chargers on when wind power is available and off when it’s not, thereby balancing power demand and supply in real time. “Up until now, we’ve considered demand or consumption as something that we have no control over, and we’ve been building the cyberphysical system to meet the demand,” says Caramanis. “But given the appropriate information, the demand side can adapt to the supply.” Supported by the NSF, the EPA, the Switzer Foundation, and other agencies, Caramanis and Foster are designing algorithms to simulate and optimize the power demand of electric vehicles over the next five minutes to 24 hours to enable their drivers to purchase wind energy at a reduced group rate. “By coordinating the demand response of electric vehicles, you can provide drivers with cost savings,” says Foster, “which then encourage more people to buy clean energy technologies and increase wind energy use.”

BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

meet the supply-

demand balance of an

increasingly electrified

transportation system.

Professor Michael Caramanis (ME) (third from left) and a building manager (left) in Boston’s Back Bay discussing Smart Neighborhood, a new, NSF-funded initiative that will explore the use of smart micro-grids and other technologies to improve energy consumption efficiency in buildings. (Image courtesy of Boston University Clean Energy & Environmental Sustainability Initiative)

Links to Smart Solutions Division of Systems Engineering: www.bu.edu/se Center for Information & Systems Engineering: www.bu.edu/systems Smart Explosives Detection: www.northeastern.edu/alert/research/systems_alternative Smart Drug Design: www.bu.edu/bme/people/primary/galagan Smart City: codescolor.bu.edu Smart Grid: www.bu.edu/pcms/caramanis

Instant Messenger: Raj Manchanda Builds Results-Oriented, High-Tech Communities Sitting next to an engineer from General Electric at an American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) technical conference, Raj Manchanda (ME’89) wastes no time. He peppers the man for the latest news on what GE is doing in energy storage; the conversation sparks a series of meetings; and ASME winds up with a plenary speaker for an upcoming fuel cell engineering conference. A self-styled advance man for the ASME, Manchanda is constantly scouting for innovative people and ideas to help the organization carry out its 120-year-old mission to help the global engineering community develop solutions to critical, real-world problems. As director of emerging technologies in ASME’s Knowledge and Community Sector, he works to facilitate collaboration and knowledge-sharing across all engineering disciplines. “We gather physicists, chemists, engineers and other multidisciplinary professionals around common problems through forums, publications, joint projects and other platforms,” says Manchanda, who has served the 127,000plus member organization for 19 years. “The idea is to form communities of interested ASME members and partners, and give them the information and tools they need not only to advance viable technology solutions, but also to commercialize them.” Advancing 21st-Century Energy Solutions These days, Manchanda is building a community of experts to advance a groundbreaking ASME initiative addressing three major energy challenges: how to store energy produced by photovoltaic cells, wind farms and other renewable power sources; how to design energyefficient building equipment and systems; and how to use less water in energy extraction, production, processing and distribution—and, conversely, less energy in water extraction, purification and distribution. Particularly excited about stimulating solutions to the energy-water challenge, Manchanda is jump-starting one high-tech community to devise ways to reduce high rates of energy and water consumption in power, agriculture, mining and other sectors of the economy. Potential solutions include the use

of nanotechnology for more energy-efficient desalination and innovative advanced cooling technologies in power plants. “The amount of fresh water is limited, and we’re saying it’s time for technology to play a greater role in increasing efficiency of both energy and water consumption,” he stresses. “By bringing together industry professionals, researchers and regulators and talking to congressmen and senators to expose the problem, we can amplify and advance technology-based solutions.” Igniting High-Tech Communities Former and current supervisors describe Manchanda as a connector, a term popularized by author Malcolm Gladwell that refers to individuals with an extraordinary ability to bring people from disparate worlds together through a mix of “curiosity, self-confidence, sociability, and energy.” Manchanda has spent nearly two decades at ASME inspiring thought leaders from technology, business and other fields to unite around common goals. Manchanda’s current supervisor, Noha El-Ghobashy, director of technical programming and development in ASME’s Knowledge and Community Sector, marvels at his ability to connect subject matter experts, organizations and ideas. “His ability to excite and move large groups of people is exemplary,” she says. “He has an incredibly positive attitude, and that’s really important in trying to build something from the ground up.” When Manchanda was assigned the task of initiating the ASME Nanotechnology Institute in 2001, knowledge about the emerging field was limited. To get the institute off the ground, he worked with visionary Arun Majumdar—an ASME Fellow who now heads the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E organization—to focus on the design, synthesis and integration of nanostructures to develop functional nanosystems. A community of materials researchers, electrical engineers, chemists, physicists, biologists and other technical professionals was formed. “We organized the key players and facilitated workshops, forums and training courses to disseminate knowledge across disciplines,” Manchanda recalls. “This interdisciplinary

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Raj Manchanda at his ASME headquarters office. (Image courtesy of ASME)

approach has led to a vibrant and growing nano community at ASME.” To expand that community even further, he recently helped launch ASME’s new Nano Educational Series Podcasts, featuring video interviews of leading nanotechnology experts discussing challenges and opportunities in nanodevices and applications. One of his former supervisors, ASME Managing Director of Global Alliances Michael Michaud, lauds Manchanda for his ability to build results-oriented communities of smart people with great ideas. “Raj is able to connect the ideas and the people to ASME and align their efforts with a business plan and the resources to get things done,” says Michaud. “He is always assessing opportunities and looking for an opening to create something new and provide value.” For Manchanda, every day brings more opportunities to create and energize groups of high-tech problem-solvers, and to get them the print and online information they need to advance solutions to energy and other highpriority societal challenges. “I’m like an instant messenger, absorbing messages from the technical community and eventually connecting technology developers with end-users,” he says. “We are at a crossroads now, and engineers and scientists are well positioned to create solutions to societal challenges.” —Mark Dwortzan

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Downsized Diagnostics: Alum Advances Faster, Cheaper Blood Test Getting screened and treated for a disease or medical condition can be inconvenient and time-consuming. First you have to make a doctor’s appointment, then endure a blood test and a three-day wait for lab results, and finally, if you test positive, you need to wait in line at a drugstore to get your prescription filled. But if Brandon Johnson (BME’04) has his way, you could get tested, diagnosed and treated in a matter of minutes at your local pharmacy. Johnson, the 28-year-old CEO of Boston Microfluidics (BMF) in Cambridge, Mass., is developing an inexpensive, disposable, handheld device that could be used to prick your finger, test your blood for a number of common diseases and report accurate results in short order. The device is so user-friendly that patients may someday use it in the comfort of their own homes. “Eventually, all diagnostic testing will migrate from the centralized lab to the doctor’s office, and ultimately to the home,” Johnson predicts. “Hopefully we’ll be the ones to design a technology that enables that.” Initially focused on fast-turnaround tests for sexually transmitted diseases such as herpes and syphilis, BMF is also investigating tests for hormone and blood glucose levels; thyroid, cardiac and cancer markers; and pregnancy. The company’s core idea—performing a complex assay typical of expensive lab machinery in a low-cost, simple package that produces results while you wait—is a natural for Johnson. Encouraged by his father to become a scientist and immersed in the world of doctors’ offices by his mother, a nurse supervisor, he decided by age 15 to pursue a career that combined engineering and medicine. But starting a business has pushed him into uncharted territory. “I’ve learned business because I had to in order to pursue this idea,” says Johnson. “I really want this technology to be out there, and the only way I see to get it there is to run this company.”

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Shrinking the Lab In terms of complexity and cost, Johnson positions BMF’s diagnostic device squarely between lateral flow—the capillary action-on-paper technology behind home pregnancy tests— and massive, centralized laboratory equipment that can cost on the order of a quarter million dollars. Although as easy to use as lateral flow systems, Johnson’s technology can prepare and handle samples in the device itself, enabling more complex assays. The device consists of a sequence of microfluidic reagent chambers that open or close via plunger-like, mechanical valves. To activate a test, the user removes the safety cap, pricks the patient’s finger, places a drop of blood on a collection pad at one end of the device and then closes it, automatically pressurizing the chambers and propagating the sample through the system. Within a few minutes, a panel displays one red dot to show the test worked, and a second red dot if the patient tested positive. Future versions will conduct several tests at once, with a dedicated result dot for each disease tested. “We’ve shown that this technology can be built and can operate effectively,” says Johnson. “Our main short-term goals are to be able to manufacture it reliably and repeatedly and get good test results from it every single time.” Commercializing the Technology Johnson hit upon the idea for a point-of-care, disposable microfluidic disease detection device in former Associate Professor Tejal Desai’s (BME) Biomedical and Biochemical Microsystems course. “He was determined to push this technology ahead and make it a success, even at the very early stages,” says Desai, now a bioengineering professor at the University of California,

San Francisco. “I think his approach is simple and elegant and can have a major impact in lowcost disease detection.” After refining his initial concept in the lab and in brainstorming sessions with fellow students and faculty in the 2003–04 BME Senior Design Project Program, Johnson began exploring ways to commercialize the idea. He attended a Senior Design Project module on entrepreneurship taught by Peter Russo, director of entrepreneurship programs at the School of Management’s Institute for Technology Entrepreneurship & Commercialization, and subsequently audited Russo’s course, Starting New Ventures, where he wrote his first business plan for Boston Microfluidics. By 2005 he’d secured enough initial angel investor funding to launch Boston Microfluidics. “Brandon had no prior business experience before starting BMF,” notes Russo, who has since served as a mentor to Johnson. “Nonetheless, he recognized the need to learn more about business and to get the assistance of advisors. He has also shown an ability to network well and to convince others to be enthusiastic about his idea.” During his first three years after graduation, while seeking sufficient funding to work full-time on BMF, Johnson not only picked up as much business knowledge as he could from executives at one of his employers, ITA Software in Cambridge, but also convinced some to invest in BMF. He next spent a year gaining more business expertise and raising more angel investor dollars as the first tenant of Boston University’s Entrepreneurial Research Laboratory, a 5,000-square-foot business incubator at the Photonics Center. Johnson now employs five people, largely BU alums, and manages dozens of contractors, consultants and third-party researchers who perform much of the company’s research and

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production. Holding a prototype of his device in a small corner office, the CEO is bullish about BMF’s future. “We raised our last round in March 2009, in one of the worst economic environments, and we were oversubscribed by our investors,” he says. Russo attributes BMF’s popularity with investors to its versatility. “BMF has a platform technology that lends itself well to working with a multitude of diagnostic assays to solve problems,” he observes. “This makes it possible for BMF to partner with a number of companies and to leverage their technical advances. Investors love to hear a story like that.” —Mark Dwortzan

“We raised our last round in March 2009, in one of the

worst economic environments, and we were oversubscribed by our investors. “

Boston Microfluidics CEO Brandon Johnson with prototype of BMF’s handheld diagnostic device. (Image courtesy of BMF) Fall 2 010 M A G A Z I N E

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BME Celebrates 25th Anniversary of Senior Design Project Conference Biomedical engineering seniors Max Condren, Matthew Fleming and Bryan Lublin spent much of the past academic year developing a more robust and versatile pulse oximeter, a device that measures oxygen levels in a patient’s blood. Their solar-powered prototype is designed to guide triage decisions of health workers in rural Zambia. Throughout the year the students were mentored by Assistant Professor Muhammad Zaman (BME) and three School of Public Health faculty members, but on April 30, they were completely on their own. One of 40 student teams presenting at the 25th annual BME Senior Design Project Conference at the Photonics Center auditorium, the three seniors attempted to convince a packed audience of the merits of their research. Dressed in business attire, they and 89 other graduating BME seniors delivered 10-minute multimedia presentations on their research projects and fielded challenging questions from BME faculty, graduate students and alumni— and from more than 100 representatives from industry, research laboratories and hospitals seeking to learn about emerging technology, expand professional networks and reunite with former classmates. This year’s conference showcased projects on topics ranging from biological

imaging to point-of-care diagnostics. The capstone of their undergraduate education, the senior project gives BME students the opportunity to analyze a major unsolved medical problem, apply engineering techniques to design a solution and present their research in a professional conference setting. Long an important requirement for engineering undergraduate program accreditation, senior design capstone projects are common across the U.S., but the BME program is among the most rigorous and professionally oriented. Over the past 25 years the Senior Project Program has been a hallmark of the Boston University BME experience and has helped shape the careers of hundreds of alumni. To mark the occasion, the BME Department created a Web-based scrapbook of Senior Project moments and photos from the past quartercentury, and held a post-conference reunion gala at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge. A Growing Professionalism Today’s professional conference departs radically from what BME students experienced back in 1985, the year before it was instituted. “About twelve faculty members got together in a classroom to hear students talk

In the early years, students used overhead projectors and wooden pointers to make their presentations. This photo was taken at the 1986 BME Senior Project Conference.

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about their senior projects,” recalled College of Engineering Dean Kenneth Lutchen, then a BME assistant professor. “Students came in shorts and T-shirts and casually described their projects. I immediately realized we could do so much more with the program.” Lutchen proposed a formal, two-semester course that would teach students how to approach an open-ended, major engineering research project in a professional and scientific manner, including the preparation and delivery of persuasive written and oral presentations. The course would provide ongoing feedback and hold students accountable for their performance from research proposal to final conference presentation before faculty and invited industry guests. The BME faculty accepted Lutchen’s proposal with one caveat: no industry guests. When the course got underway that fall, Lutchen, intent on bringing out the best in each student, provided honest and sometimes harsh critiques of their presentations. “While the students were incredibly angry that someone would be so blunt and challenging, many were looking for someone to challenge them to perform at a higher level and really do something substantive and com-

Today’s BME students deliver multimedia PowerPoint presentations to a much larger audience of fellow students, faculty and industry representatives.

Professor H. Steven Colburn (BME) and BME alumni at the post-conference BME Reunion Gala on April 30 at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge.

municate it well,” said Lutchen. “At the end of the year, students presented their work in a conference-like setting, and they were outstanding. The faculty said, ‘That was great; start inviting companies.’” Over the past 25 years the number of industry representatives in attendance has grown from seven to more than 100. Meanwhile, the quality of students’ visual presentations has improved dramatically, from crude overhead projector transparencies to sophisticated PowerPoint presentations with movies and animations. Noting the success of the BME Senior Project Program, the College of Engineering’s other departments established their own formal courses and conferences within a decade of the program’s inception. Lutchen ran the BME program for 23 years before handing the baton to Professor Irving Bigio in 2008. In the coming years, as the College emphasizes the relationship between technology innovation and commercialization, a subset of senior design projects in all departments may focus on both technological and entrepreneurial challenges. Inspiring and Shaping Careers In its first quarter-century, the BME Senior Project Program has served as a formative experience for hundreds of participating students. For instance, developing their solar-powered

College of Engineering Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen, who founded the BME Senior Project Conference in 1986 and organized it until 2008, at the BME Reunion Gala.

pulse oximeter as a versatile field instrument showed Condren, Fleming and Lublin how much impact they can have on society. “We wanted our senior project to have an immediate clinical impact,” said Lublin. “It was amazing to see how a simple design could have such profound implications for global health.” The pulse oximeter also had an immediate impact on the conference judges, who named it the 2010 Outstanding Senior Project. Mark Deem (BME ’89), whose team received that honor at the 1989 conference, discovered his career path while developing a lightweight, sensor-enhanced shoe insole used to develop orthotics for diabetics. “This project, and winning the award, proved to me that my strong suit was early prototyping on a shoestring,” said Deem, now managing partner of The Foundry. “Since then I have cofounded fourteen medical device startups.” Lutchen derives immense pleasure from watching such students become tremendously successful. “Most alumni will say that the program taught them what it takes to drive oneself to the highest level on any given project under intense pressure,” he said. “When our alums come back and say ‘Look what I’m doing,’ it’s great to know that their BU background is impacting society—and that this program helped.” —Mark Dwortzan

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At the 25th annual BME Senior Design Project Conference, Max Condren, Matthew Fleming and Bryan Lublin described a solar-powered field instrument they devised to guide triage decisions of health workers in rural Zambia.

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ENGNews ENG Freshman Enrollment Jumps Dramatically This September’s College of Engineering freshman class is nearly 30 percent larger than last year’s, following a surge of enrollment deposits submitted by accepted students this spring. This sizable boost in enrollment comes in a year when applications jumped about 18 percent, and one year after a major restructuring of the undergraduate program that added new concentrations in emerging economic sectors such as energy and nanotechnology; minors aimed at better positioning students for careers in engineering’s traditional and emerging signature fields; and a suite of experiential and complementary educational enhancements in innovation and entrepreneurship, technology and public policy, community service and global health, paid undergraduate research and industry internship opportunities. “Our goal is to create the Societal Engineer, an individual who will appreciate how the cultural and public policy aspects of societies relate to the way engineering and applied science drive the innovation ecosystems that advance our quality of life,” said Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen. “The Societal Engineer has outstanding engineering and quantitative problem-solving skills complemented by other crucial attributes, such as communication skills, systems thinking, the ability to engage crossfunctional teams, global awareness, an entrepreneurial mindset and a social consciousness that sustains awareness of the power and obligation of engineering to address society’s grand challenges.” Since the fall of 2009, freshmen not only select a major degree program in Biomedical, Computer, Electrical or Mechanical Engineering, but may also minor in any other engineering program, in Systems Engineering, Materials Science & Engineering, or in one of several programs at

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other BU schools and colleges. New interdisciplinary concentrations in Nanotechnology and Energy Technologies & Environmental Engineering are available to all engineering students, and Mechanical Engineering majors can concentrate in either Aerospace or Manufacturing Engineering. Features of the undergraduate experience that continue to attract prospective students include a study abroad program that provides international experience without requiring added time or expense; access to the broad and diverse educational offerings of Boston University; and the flexibility to designate a major as late as the end of sophomore year. “We have made integrating study in different engineering disciplines more seam-

less for undergraduates, enabling them to better position themselves for leadership in the twenty-first century,” said Lutchen. “Students now have easier access to all the College of Engineering has to offer, as well as to what’s available to them throughout Boston University.” While this year’s incoming freshmen will have more classmates, their educational experience will not be diluted, maintained Ruth Jean, associate director of student services in the Undergraduate Program Office. “We have already worked to offer more sections within classes,” she said. “The quality of the freshman experience is crucial for these excited new engineering students and it will be the same this year as it was last year.” —Mark Dwortzan

The Class of 2014 and other members of the College of Engineering community gathered on September 2 for the College’s third annual block party on Cummington Street—an afternoon of food, music, activities and games. Associate Professor R. Glynn Holt (ME) was one of several volunteers who got dunked at the event to raise money for Habitat for Humanity.

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College of Engineering Ranks High Among Domestic PhD Students According to a recent report issued by the American Society for Engineering Education, Boston University is one of a select group of U.S. colleges and universities that have remained highly competitive among American citizens considering a PhD in engineering. In the ASEE report, which cites 2008 data, Boston University’s College of Engineering grants 55 percent of its PhDs to U.S. citizens, placing it 11th among U.S. schools with the highest percentage of engineering doctorates awarded to domestic students (out of 94 schools that grant more

than 25 PhDs annually). The ASEE report finds that overall, 42 percent of U.S. doctoral degrees in engineering were awarded to domestic students. About one-third of all U.S. PhDs in engineering and science are awarded to foreign-born graduate students, a phenomenon that began after World War II and accelerated in the 1990s. As greater numbers of international students have enrolled in U.S. PhD programs, more and more domestic students have chosen to enroll in professional degree programs or enter the workforce after earning a bachelor’s degree.

“It is known, and unfortunate, that American citizens do not seek advanced science and engineering degrees in large numbers,” said Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Programs Selim Ünlü. “Countering this trend, Boston University’s College of Engineering is one of only 14 engineering schools in the U.S. that graduates more than 50 percent domestic PhDs.” Other schools granting the highest percentage of engineering PhDs to domestic students include Carnegie Mellon University, Harvard University and MIT. —Mark Dwortzan

ENG Graduate Course Featured on iTunes U Assistant Professor Lorena Barba (ME) has posted the College of Engineering’s first course on iTunes U, a free multimedia learning environment created by the leading online music retailer. Intended for graduates and advanced undergraduates, the course, ENG ME 702—Computational Fluid Dynamics, shows students how to develop computational tools to simulate the motion of fluids in phenomena ranging from airflow around a wing to global climate change. Sequenced in more than a dozen video tracks, the new course is part of the Boston University iTunes Library, a growing compendium of online multimedia educational offerings and news developments from across the BU campus. Anyone with iTunes on their Mac, PC, iPod or iPhone—

whether a BU community member or lifelong learner across the globe—may download items from the library for free. Before each class Barba converts her lecture notes into a set of Keynote (Apple’s version of PowerPoint) slides, each bearing a title; a few key points and equations; an occasional image, diagram or video clip; and a lot of white space. Once in the classroom, she annotates each slide on a laptop linked to a graphic tablet, wireless microphone and overhead projector. As Barba derives equations, plots curves and adds words of explanation on the tablet and students follow on the projection, a “screencasting” software app records what appears onscreen and what the microphone picks up in an integrated QuickTime video. Afterwards, she deletes any “dead

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space” from the beginning and ending of the video—as well as occasional class discussions—and uploads it to iTunes U. “By using the tablet to annotate each slide, I can combine the support material that’s typical of a static PowerPoint presentation with the dynamic, one-step-at-a-time pace of deriving equations on a chalkboard,” said Barba. Lectures and programming assignments build incrementally toward mastery of the material. Through this course Barba aims to enable both enrolled and onlineonly students to develop an intuitive grasp of the Navier-Stokes equations—which describe fluid motion—and to acquire basic skills in solving these equations via computational methods. —Mark Dwortzan

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ENG Spinoff Firm Nets DOE Clean Energy Award Technology developed by Professor Uday Pal (ME) received a boost from the U.S. Department of Energy with a grant aimed at spurring its commercial development. Metal Oxygen Separation Technologies Inc., (MOxST), a Natick-based metals manufacturing company that’s commercializing the technology, was selected as one of six Massachusetts winners of the DOE’s Industrial Energy Efficiency Grand Challenge, which targets the development of manufacturing processes and technologies that promise to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions throughout the industrial sector and enhance U.S. energy security and economic growth. Known as solid oxide membrane (SOM) electrolysis, Pal’s technology is a novel, energy-efficient, one-step method to produce pure magnesium, the least dense engineering metal with the highest stiffness-to-weight ratio. The U.S. Automotive Materials Partnership estimates that magnesium could reduce average motor vehicle weight by 290 pounds, an achievement that would improve fuel economy by about 1.5 miles per gallon and cut petroleum demand by over $20 billion annually. Pal developed SOM electrolysis over the past decade to produce magnesium, titanium and other metals from their oxides with minimum environmental impact and at low cost. SOM electrolysis continuously feeds magnesium oxide into a molten salt bath, where electricity splits it into magnesium metal vapor and oxygen gas in separate chambers. “Many metals are found in nature in oxide form, such as aluminum oxide in the mineral bauxite and silicon dioxide in quartz and various sands,” MOxST Chief Technology Officer Adam C. Powell explains. “This pro-

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cess efficiently separates those oxides into the metal and pure oxygen gas with zero environmental emissions.” Competing primary metal production methods emit carbon dioxide or chlorine into the atmosphere, and, in the case of magnesium, are considerably more expensive. A recent comparison of the cost of magnesium production using the SOM process with the two other most widely used processes and an additional process under development shows that the SOM process would produce magnesium at half the current cost. MOxST will use its $260,000 Grand Challenge grant to develop a low-cost, nonpolluting recycling process based on SOM electrolysis to treat low-grade, mixed-alloy and heavily oxidized post-consumer magnesium scrap, and produce pure magnesium for making new auto parts. “Together with the new Grand Challenge project working on the first process capable of recycling low-grade mixed-

alloy post-consumer scrap, SOM electrolysis will be a foundation technology set for fully recyclable lightweight vehicle structures of the 21st century,” said Powell. MOxST is also using Pal’s low-cost, environment-friendly SOM technology to produce solar-grade silicon directly from sand (silicon dioxide) for solar energy systems. Pal’s lab at BU is actively involved in both magnesium and solar applications, and his former advisee, Soobhankar Pati (PhD, MSE’10), works for MOxST as a research engineer. They’re now contributing to the company’s effort to incorporate SOM electrolysis in commercial-grade manufacturing equipment for the automotive market, a transition that will require enlarging SOM reactor vessels more than two hundredfold. “We’re working on scaling up the SOM electrolysis process for both silicon and magnesium to tonnage scales,” said Powell. “We’re looking at a 24-month time frame to start introducing the product into the market.” —Mark Dwortzan

Schematic of the SOM magnesium process, which Professor Uday Pal (MSE) developed and MOxST is now commercializing.

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Researchers Develop Plant-Based Vaccine Factory When a future pandemic breaks out, public health officials may have a high-production vaccine factory at their disposal thanks to the work of Boston University researchers and engineers at the Fraunhofer USA Center for Manufacturing Innovation at Boston University. In conjunction with the Fraunhofer USA Center for Molecular Biology in Delaware and the biopharmaceutical company iBio, Inc., they have developed a fully automated “factory” that uses tobacco plants to efficiently produce large quantities of biological medicines within weeks. This first-of-a-kind, plant-based vaccine factory takes advantage of the tobacco plant’s well-understood, genetically engineered mechanisms for producing specific proteins within the leaves and stalks. The factory consists of a series of robotically tended machines that plant seeds, nurture the growing plants, insert genetic instructions on what to produce, and harvest the plants at maturity. “What was needed was a way to produce large doses of vaccines or other medicines, and the only way to do that is to treat it like an industrial process,” said Andre Sharon, a professor of mechanical engineering at Boston University and director of the Fraunhofer Center at BU. “Even though the process of making vaccines from plants is almost like farming—growing, watering, harvesting—we treat it like an automated manufacturing process. That’s how we can scale it up from a few milligrams in laboratory demonstrations to many kilograms in case of a pandemic.” “This is a perfect example of coupling engineering expertise and scientific advancement to cost-effectively meet a societal need,” said Boston University President

Robert A. Brown, himself an engineer. “It is a model for collaboration that we strongly believe in on our campus, as they do at Fraunhofer as well.” The unique plant-based vaccine factory resulted from a three-year collaboration between the College of Engineering, iBio, and the Boston and Delaware branches of Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Europe’s largest applied research organization. The factory was designed to be time, cost and space efficient, and can grow tens of thousands of plants in one batch. The plants are grown in multi-plant trays that are used to handle and transport them to the different processing stations. To automate the agriculture, two robots glide up and down narrow aisles, tending the plants and delivering trays to and from the lighted, irrigated growth modules to each processing station at the appropriate time. Traditional methods of vaccine production take many months, but this process, from seeding to harvesting, takes just a few weeks. Once plants have reached a certain stage of growth, formulating large doses of vaccines could be produced very quickly.

After seeding—with a seeding machine designed to separate, pick up and plant a single seed into an array pattern on the growth tray—and several weeks of growing, preprogrammed robots shepherd trays of plants to a machine that biologically inserts instructions to produce the appropriate protein. The team developed a proprietary procedure that allows this to be done economically in bulk. After growing for several more weeks, a harvesting machine shears the plants from their trays, and using routine chemical separation procedures, the protein is extracted. —Michael Seele

One of the project’s engineering challenges was designing a system that would plant just a single tiny tobacco seed in each of the circular growth areas.

ENG/Fraunhofer factory consists of robotically tended machines that plant seeds, nurture growing plants, insert genetic instructions on what to produce and harvest plants at maturity. (Image courtesy of Fraunhofer USA Center for Manufacturing Innovation at Boston University)

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ENGNews

Artificial Pancreas System Shows Promise in Humans To maintain safe blood sugar levels, people with type 1 diabetes must submit to a demanding daily regimen that requires frequent monitoring of blood glucose (BG) and dosing of insulin via injection or infusion pump. Even with recently developed continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) technology, the diabetic or caregiver must still double-check BG levels and administer insulin several times a day. Because the process is so labor-intensive, the type 1 diabetic community—nearly two million strong in the U.S.—has long sought an automated, “closed-loop” system that regulates BG with minimal human intervention. This past spring, investigators at Boston University and Massachusetts General Hospital conducted the first clinical trial of a closed-loop system prototype developed by Associate Professor Edward R. Damiano (BME) and Senior Research Associate Firas H. El-Khatib (BME). The system uses decisionmaking software to pump insulin and glucagon (a blood sugar-raising hormone) beneath the skin based on BG readings every five minutes. The team—the first to complete a human trial of a closed-loop system using

both insulin and glucagon—described the system’s performance in the April 14 edition of Science Translational Medicine. “Over time, our automated system would not only reduce the decision-making load on type 1 diabetes patients and their caregivers, but would also help keep patients’ blood glucose levels within a much healthier range than open-loop systems,” said Damiano. “As a result, they would experience far fewer low blood sugar episodes and avoid chronic high blood sugar levels associated with cardiovascular disease, kidney failure, retinal damage and other long-term complications.” Based on a series of experiments they conducted on diabetic pigs starting in 2005, Damiano and El-Khatib’s closed-loop system uses a control algorithm to receive BG data from a standard, FDA-approved CGM sensor every five minutes and dose either lispro, a fast-acting insulin analog (for elevated BG), or glucagon (for low readings) with a standard, FDA-approved insulin infusion pump. In effect, the system works to emulate the endocrine pancreas, continually producing these two hormones to regulate blood sugar.

In the clinical trial at MGH, 11 adults with type 1 diabetes were hooked to an experimental version of the software-controlled, closed-loop system for 27 hours and supplied with three carbohydrate-rich meals.

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Emulating the Pancreas In the clinical trial, the research team studied 11 adults with type 1 diabetes, each hooked to an experimental version of the closed-loop system for 27 hours at MGH and supplied with three carbohydrate-rich meals. Consisting of an intravenous BG monitor, infusion pumps to deliver insulin and glucagon through abdominal tissue just beneath the skin, and a laptop containing the control soft-

ware, the system compared each BG reading with a 100 milligrams/deciliter (mg/dL) “ideal” target, and computed insulin and glucagon doses aimed at minimizing the difference between the reading and the target. After two rounds of experiments, the system enabled the subjects to avoid hypoglycemia and achieve an aggregate mean BG of 166 mg/dL—only six points above the ADA’s recommended level. The Seven-Year Goal Damiano’s interest in developing an automated, closed-loop control system emerged in 2000 when his 11-month-old son, David, developed type 1 diabetes. “When he was a baby, I checked his blood sugar with finger stick measurements 15 times a day,” he recalls. “Two years ago I got him onto a CGM that allows me to put a receiver in my bedroom with alarms to wake me up to give him juice when his BG hits 75, or insulin when it reaches 140. In seven years David goes to college, and he won’t get the kind of control I can provide for him.” Damiano’s goal is to produce a practical artificial endocrine pancreas for outpatient use by that time. In a follow-up study this spring, he and his collaborators tested a standard portable infusion pump and CGM on 36 adult and pediatric subjects for about two days. Eventually the software, currently stored on a laptop, will be condensed onto an integrated circuit on the pump. Damiano’s research was supported by grants from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the Wallace Coulter Foundation, the Charlton Fund for Innovative Research in Diabetes and the National Center for Research Resources. —Mark Dwortzan

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New Drug Delivery Method Aims to Prevent Lung Cancer Recurrence The leading cause of cancer mortality in the U.S., lung cancer is remarkably difficult to cure. The standard of care is to surgically remove, or resect, lung tissue tumors, but nearly 40 percent of patients receiving such treatment at an early stage develop recurrent disease at a local or distant site. Even when recurrence is local, the majority of patients are not candidates for repeat surgical resection, and the two-year survival rate is only 18 to 24 percent. Finally, systematic injection of paclitaxel, the standard chemotherapy agent for lung cancer, delivers inadequate concentrations of the drug to diseased lung tissue and damaging toxins to healthy organs. Joining forces to resolve these problems, a team of engineers, chemists and clinicians led by Professor Mark W. Grinstaff (BME) and Yolonda L. Colson, associate professor of surgery and an attending cardiothoracic surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, has developed a unique new drug delivery device to prevent lung tumor recurrence after surgical resection. Grinstaff group member Jesse B. Wolinsky (BME PhD’09) was instrumental in developing and demonstrating the concept. In a study published in the online edition of Annals of Surgical Oncology in December, the research team produced paclitaxel-loaded polymer films that allowed the controlled, low-dose release of the drug over an extended period to kill cancer cells remaining in lung tissue after surgical resection of mouse lung tumors. The films are flexible and easily stapled to tissue to allow

local delivery, limiting the negative effects of chemotherapy on the rest of the body. “This research project was unique because we were able to both design and synthesize a new polymeric drug delivery system and then evaluate that system in a clinically relevant model,” said Grinstaff. “This type of research collaboration between technology and medicine has the potential to impact patient care, which is extremely exciting.” Grinstaff’s group focused on designing a polymer that could be stapled into diseased lung tissue and deliver a chemotherapeutic drug to tumor cells over several weeks—all while buttressing the tissue to promote efficient healing. The group tested different polymer materials in vitro and selected one polymer formulation for evaluation in an in vivo mouse model developed by Colson, a lung cancer expert. Implanting the paclitaxel-bearing films in mouse models over several weeks,

“This therapy has the potential to help thousands of lung cancer patients, who currently face a grim outlook when cancer recurs following surgical resection,” said Colson. “When compared to the standard method of delivering paclitaxel, the local application of paclitaxel-loaded polymer films following surgical resection is an exciting new clinical possibility.” The research was supported by the Center for Integrative Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT), a nonprofit consortium of hospitals and engineering universities supporting translational research; the American College of Surgeons, and the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation. —Mark Dwortzan

“This therapy has the potential to help thousands of lung cancer patients, who currently face a grim outlook when cancer recurs following surgical resection.” the researchers found that using paclitaxelloaded films after surgical resection of a lung cancer tumor prevented local tumor recurrence in 83.3 percent of cases—compared to a 22 percent rate when paclitaxel was injected at the surgical site.

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Polymer film on surgical collagen scaffold. Upper panel shows a dry film; lower panel shows flexibility of a wet film. Scale bar: 5 mm. (Images courtesy of Annals of Surgical Oncology)

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ENGNews

Student/Alumni News Bytes

ENG Undergrads Launch Health 2.0 Startup Brian Chan (BME’10), Dan Collins (CE’11) and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute mechanical engineering senior Milton Chan (Brian’s cousin) launched a startup, mobiLIFE, this summer to advance a painless, Bluetoothenabled continuous glucose monitor (CGM) that delivers more comfortable and accurate readings at a fraction of the cost of current CGMs. Integrating readings from one-a-day, disposable micro-needle arm patches with smartphone applications and Web-based services, the device could provide diabetes patients and their health care providers with real-time data and triggered emergency alerts.

In collaboration with Professor Mark Grinstaff (BME), Stewart is developing contrast agents to help physicians and researchers see cartilage tissue with CT scans. These contrast agents could be useful for diagnosing and monitoring early osteoarthritis—a painful joint disorder that affects over 27 million people in the United States. Working with Associate Professor Amit Meller (BME), Squires uses nanopores—two-nanometerwide channels in solid state membranes—in combination with optical tweezers to directly probe local forces on molecules such as DNA, RNA and proteins.

Two BME Graduate Students Win Clare Boothe Luce Fellowships Biomedical engineering doctoral students Allison Squires (MS’08) and Rachel Stewart (MS’08) received two-year fellowships from the Clare Boothe Luce Program, the largest source of private funding for women in science, mathematics and engineering. Rachel Stewart and Allison Squires

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Help for Night Drivers A team of ENG undergraduates designed a night vision driver assistance program that displays “threats”—such as pedestrians, obstacles and road signs—on a dashboardmounted touch screen and warns drivers of their presence with a beep. Called NightHawk NVS, the system was developed as an electrical and computer engineering senior design project by Luis Carrasco (ENG’10,’11) (pictured), Sehrish Abid (ENG’10), Andrew Sarratori (ENG’10), York Chan (ENG’10) and Wesley Griswold (ENG’10). BME Graduate Student Wins NSF Research Fellowship Biomedical engineering graduate student Dewi Harjanto has received a 2010 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. She is one of four Boston University students—the only one in the College of Engineering—to receive the multi-year award recognizing graduate students deemed likely to contribute significantly to the advancement of science and engineering in the U.S. Past fellows include several Nobel Prize winners and industry and government leaders. The fellowship will support Harjanto’s research focused on improving our understanding of the complex mechanical, biochemical and structural signals emerging from the local environment of tumors—signals that collectively contribute to cancer cells’ ability to inflict harm by moving from the tumor site to distant locations of the body. Known as metastasis, this process is responsible for nearly all cancer-related deaths.

ENGNews

ME Graduate Student Wins China Award Mechanical engineering graduate student Hu “Tiger” Tao received the most prestigious student award issued by the Chinese government, the National Award for Outstanding Overseas Chinese Students. The award honors outstanding academic achievement across the globe in the arts, science, engineering, medicine, commerce and other subject areas. Tao is the first Chinese student studying at Boston University to receive the award. ECE Graduate Student Anne Boisvert (MS’10) Wins Third Place at ASEE Conference Electrical and computer engineering student Anne Boisvert (MS’10) and ECE Professors S. Hamid Nawab and Bahaa Saleh (Emeritus) designed a Web-based tool that uses con-

cept maps to illustrate how a product such as a cell phone requires a background in radars, computer operating systems, algorithms and more. The tool could help many universities better demonstrate how very focused classes can later tie into a career. The American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) recognized the trio’s efforts in May when their paper, “WebBased Tool for Learning an Integrated View of Engineering,” was awarded third place in the student paper category at the ASEE Northeast Section Conference. Justin Foster, Systems Engineering PhD Candidate, Awarded EPA and Switzer Environmental Fellowships Systems engineering PhD candidate Justin Foster was selected as an Environmental

Protection Agency STAR Fellow and as a Switzer Environmental Fellow. The EPA STAR Fellowship provides up to three years of funding for doctoral students focused on environmental studies; issued by the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation, the Switzer Environmental Fellowship helps graduate students develop their skills and expertise to address critical environmental challenges. Foster is currently focused on the market-based coordination of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and renewable electricity generation—in particular, wind—that will contribute to the broad adoption of both technologies. Linda Grosser and Rachel Harrington contributed to this report. —Mark Dwortzan

Engineering Ethics Ceremony Marks First 25 Years at BU Most of us take it for granted that nothing will go wrong when we step into an elevator or drive across a bridge. But recent tragic events, from the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis to sudden acceleration problems in Toyota Prius hybrid cars, remind us how much our lives depend on the legions of engineers who design the built e nvironment. To encourage engineers to recognize their ethical responsibilities to society, since 1970 the Order of the Engineer organization has inducted thousands of graduating or newly registered U.S. engineers with a ceremony in which they recite a Hippocratic Oath-like pledge and accept a stainless steel ring marking their commitment to uphold the highest standards of the profession. About 100 College of Engineering seniors did just that on February 19 at the Photonics Center Auditorium, joining

the more than 3,000 graduates who have entered the Order since the College held its first ceremony 25 years ago. Featured guest speaker Peter Cirak (ENG’01, MS’07), a technical leader at Paradigm Precision and the 2009 Distinguished Alumni Award winner, pointed to his Order of the Engineer ring as a constant reminder of his professional commitment to the well-being of society at large. “Sometimes courage comes at the tip of a pen, when a company’s buyer sends down a purchase order to an engineer to sign off on a request for glue or cement that, although it might be the cheapest, is substandard and doesn’t do the job,” he said. The Order traces its roots to the Canadian “Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer” which was established in Canada in 1926. —Mark Dwortzan

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Barrett Steinberg (BME’10) received his ring from Assistant Professor Michael Smith (BME). Associate Professor Donald Wroblewski (ME) and Assistant Professors Smith, Hatice Altug (ECE) and Catherine Klapperich (ME) distributed rings.

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FacultyNews ENG Professor Wins Highest BU Teaching Award Students who learn from J. Gregory McDaniel come away with an unusually broad sense of the applications of engineering: McDaniel’s research has ranged from automotive brake squeal to the hatching behavior of red-eyed tree frogs, two dissimilar subjects that are united, in his mind, by mechanical vibrations and acoustics. Baiting his line with such diverse lures to reel in students’ attention — being a “student of the student,” he calls it — has brought McDaniel, an associate professor at the College of Engineering, this year’s Metcalf Cup and Prize, the University’s highest teaching honor.

McDaniel (ME) is the second College of Engineering faculty member to garner the $10,000 award for outstanding teaching philosophy and performance, which Professor James J. Collins (BME) received in 2000. “I was surprised and honored beyond words when I was notified,” says McDaniel, adding that winning such an honor for doing what he loves “is one of the greatest feelings on earth.” “I teach in a discipline that has historically been short on passion and creativity,” McDaniel wrote in a statement of teaching philosophy that he submitted to the Metcalf awards committee. “My mission in life is to change that path as much as I can, one student at a time.” McDaniel also wrote that vibration “is the last thing I think about before I go to sleep and the first thing that I think about when I wake up.”

One student recalled the class laughing when he first told them that, but the humor soon morphed into inspiration. “I have realized throughout the semester that he was probably completely serious,” the student wrote in his teacher evaluation. “It is great to have a professor who is so excited about a subject!” Translating his expertise into activism, McDaniel cofounded BU’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders, which last summer, with his assistance, designed clean-water facilities and other necessities for a village in Peru. The honor was created in 1973 with a gift from the late Arthur G. B. Metcalf (SED’35, Hon.’74). A committee chooses the winner based on nominees’ statements of teaching philosophy, letters of support from colleagues and students and committee members’ in-class observations. —Rich Barlow, BU Today

James Collins Wins Lagrange Prize Many of us try to simplify our lives. James J. Collins revels in complexity, and it’s a good thing, too. Collins’s research into complexity science has spurred new devices to treat stroke-induced brain failure, enhanced doctors’ understanding of how human posture is warped by aging and Parkinson’s disease, and helped invent synthetic gene networks, whose many uses include fighting bacterial infections. Most recently, Collins’s dexterity with complexity earned the William Fairfield

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Warren Distinguished Professor and College of Engineering professor of biomedical engineering the 2010 Lagrange-CRT Foundation Prize. The prize, given by the Institute for Scientific Interchange Foundation (ISI) in Turin, Italy, honors “outstanding contributions relevant to the progress of complexity science.” Complexity science refers to the multidisciplinary study of complex systems, which can range from the cell to the ecosystem to the stock market to ant colonies. “Collins’s path-blazing work on complex systems in biology is changing our world for the better, and improving the lives of others,” President Robert A. Brown wrote in his nomination letter for the award. Collins, who co-directs the

University’s Center for BioDynamics, will receive a prize of 50,000 euros, or more than $60,000. Previous winners include Princeton mathematician Yakov Sinai, who pioneered measurements of dynamical systems, economist W. Brian Arthur, who advanced the concept of increasing returns, and Italian physicist Giorgio Parisi. “I am honored and humbled to receive the Lagrange Prize, particularly in light of the stellar achievements of the previous recipients,” says Collins. “I have benefited tremendously from the strong support shown by the BU community for interdisciplinary complexity research.” —Rich Barlow, BU Today

FacultyNews

ENG Awards Celebrate Faculty Achievements Last May the College of Engineering announced this year’s Distinguished Faculty Fellow, Faculty Service Award, Professor of the Year and Department Awards for Teaching Excellence. The College selected Professor Kamil Ekinci as the 2010 Distinguished Faculty Fellow, an award that recognizes midlevel faculty members for significant contributions to their field. Ekinci will receive $20,000 per year for the next five years to support his investigations of mechanical systems at nanometer-length scales. “Obtaining grant funding for new highrisk and high-impact research ideas without preliminary results is quite challenging,” said Ekinci. “This award will allow me to pursue such ideas swiftly, without initially worrying about external grants and contracts. It will also help me explore new collaborations

both within and outside the University.” Through measurements of the physical properties of nanomechanical systems, Ekinci hopes to gain a better understanding of the fundamental physical processes in such systems, and to design and fabricate ultra-high speed nanomechanical sensors. Associate Professor Jeffrey Carruthers (ECE) was named the 2010 Professor of the Year by members of the 2010 graduating class. Choosing the professor they felt best exemplifies excellence in teaching, this year’s seniors collected votes via the Engineering graduation website. A Boston University faculty member since 1997, Carruthers pursues research interests in digital communications theory, wireless networks and wireless, optical and mobile communications. He teaches courses in communication systems, computer and communication networks, and

wireless communications. The College’s Executive Board selected Professor Michael Ruane (ECE) for the 2010 Faculty Service Award for outstanding contributions to the College through involvement in programs, committees and organizations within the College and University. Ruane’s many contributions to the College include his service as faculty outreach coordinator, his administration of the ECE Senior Design Project and ENG Design Competition, and his role in developing the High Tech Tools and Toys Laboratory. Finally, the 2010 recipients of the Department Awards for Teaching Excellence are Professor Steven Colburn (BME), Associate Professor David Starobinski (ECE) and Associate Professor J. Gregory McDaniel (ME). —Mark Dwortzan

Dean’s Catalyst Awards Boost Four Innovative Projects College of Engineering research in green computing, tissue scaffold engineering, solar-grade silicon manufacturing and cell traction forces received a boost this past spring thanks to the Dean’s Catalyst Awards (DCA) grant program. This year, four research teams will each receive up to $50,000 in DCA funding to develop novel techniques to investigate these topics. Established by Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen in 2007 and organized by a faculty committee, the annual Dean’s Catalyst Awards program encourages early-stage, innovative, interdisciplinary projects that could spark new advances in a variety of engineering fields. By providing each project with seed funding, the awards give full-time faculty the opportunity to generate initial proof-of-concept results that could help secure external funding.

The 2010 award winners are: • Assistant Professor Ayse Coskun and Associate Professor Martin Herbordt (both ECE) aim to develop widely applicable, inexpensive software methods to reduce energy consumption and enable more efficient cooling in computer systems, which account for more than three percent of U.S. electricity consumption.

• Assistant Professor Michael Smith and Associate Professor Dimitrije Stamenovic (both BME) will work to simplify traction force microscopy, a cell biology tool previously developed at Boston University that measures the traction forces exerted by cells on their surroundings—forces of critical importance in studies ranging from cancer to regenerative medicine.

• Aiming to bring about dramatic reductions in the economic and environmental costs of manufacturing solar-grade silicon (a major fraction of the cost of solar cells), Professor Uday Pal and Soumendra Basu (both ME, MSE) will work on developing a one-step, carbon- and chlorine-free reduction and purification process starting from sand (silicon dioxide).

• Associate Professor Glynn Holt (ME) and Assistant Professor Catherine Klapperich (ME, BME) aim to advance a novel acoustic method t o form a micro-patterned scaffold for use in the growth of artificial skin or other biological tissue.

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“Receiving the DCA is a pivotal event for our idea,” said Holt. “Frankly, without the DCA, we could not proceed on this high-risk (but potentially high-payoff) project.” —Mark Dwortzan www.bu.edu/eng

FacultyNews

Castañón Named ECE Interim Chair On July 26, College of Engineering Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen appointed Professor David Castañón chairman ad interim of the Electrical & Computer Engineering Department. Castañón, who will hold the position while the search for a permanent chair is underway, previously served in this role during the last ECE Chair search in 2007–08. “He served spectacularly in that capacity both as an advocate and leader for ECE and as a collegial and crucial member of the Executive Committee,” said Lutchen. “I am extremely appreciative that David is willing to take on this responsibility.”

An ECE faculty member since 1990, Castañón succeeds Professor Franco Cerrina, who died unexpectedly on July 12. [See story, p. 36.] Castañón’s research emphasizes stochastic control, estimation, optimization and image understanding, with applications to multi-target tracking, object recognition, sensor management and cooperative control. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses and advises graduate students. He previously won the ECE Department’s Teaching Excellence Award. Castañón has authored or co-authored over 200 refereed publications and articles, including the book Foundations and Applications of Sensor Management. He served as president of the Control Systems

Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2008 and received its Distinguished Member Award in 2006. He also serves on the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. He is co-director of Boston University’s Center for Information & Systems Engineering, deputy director of the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center on Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems and associate director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Center of Excellence in Detection and Mitigation of Explosive Threats. Previously, he worked at MIT’s Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems. —Rachel Harrington, ECE Department

Faculty News Bytes Hatice Altug Wins ONR Young Investigator Award The Office of Naval Research (ONR) named Assistant Professor Hatice Altug (ECE) one of 17 winners of its 2010 Young Investigator Program (YIP), for showing exceptional promise for conducting innovative research. Since arriving at Boston University in 2007, Altug has published several groundbreaking research papers in major scientific journals on the use of nanophotonic devices—platforms that confine and manipulate photons at the nanoscale level—for on-chip biosensing and optical communication. The three-year, up to $510,000 YIP grant will fund her research on high-performance nanoplasmonic sensors that combine electronics and optics at the nanoscale for biological warfare agent detection.

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Major NSF Grant to Fund Smartphone Security Initiative The National Science Foundation awarded a $3 million grant to a Boston-University-led project called Securing the Open Softphone. Based at BU’s Center for Reliable Information Systems & Cyber Security (RISCS), the research team includes nine senior investigators from the College of Engineering (ENG), College of Arts & Sciences and Metropolitan College; two industrial partners, Deutsche Telekom and Raytheon BBN Technologies; and one academic partner, Warwick University. The ENG faculty, Professor Mark Karpovsky and Associate Professors David Starobinski and Ari Trachtenberg (all ECE), plan to address hardware, software and networking challenges in making softphones— smartphones loaded with open-source software programs that users can customize to fit their needs—more secure.

ECE Professor Theodore Moustakas Wins Thin-Film Technology Award The North America MBE Advisory Board has selected Professor Theodore Moustakas (ECE) as the winner of its 2010 MBE Innovator Award. MBE stands for Molecular Beam Epitaxy, a versatile and advanced thin-film growth technique used to make high-precision, pure compound semiconductor materials. The technique layers these materials one on top of the other to form transistors, lasers and other semiconductor devices used in fiber-optic, cellular, satellite and other applications. Moustakas garnered the 2010 MBE Innovator Award for pioneering contributions in the development of MBE growth of nitride materials and the development of nitride optoelectronic devices prepared by MBE. —Mark Dwortzan

FacultyNews

College of Engineering Welcomes Six New Faculty Members, Promotes Three The College of Engineering welcomed six new faculty members and promoted three for the 2010–2011 academic year. Experts in diverse fields, they reflect the interdisciplinary nature and innovative spirit of the College.

New Faculty Members Assistant Professor Douglas Densmore (ECE) joined the College from the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center in Emeryville, California, where he served as a postdoctoral fellow. Previously, he served as a U.C. Chancellor’s postdoc at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his PhD in electrical engineering and computer sciences in 2007. Densmore is primarily interested in the development of tools for synthetic biological systems and the development of system level architectural models for programmable platforms. Formerly a Helen Hay Whitney Fellow at the MIT Media Laboratory and McGovern Institute, Assistant Professor Xue Han (BME) received her doctoral degree in physiology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2004. Han’s current research focuses on developing radical new, genetic, molecular and optical neurotechnologies and application protocols to treat brain disorders. Assistant Professor Bobak Nazer (ECE) was a postdoctoral fellow in the ECE Department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and earned his PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2009.

Densmore

Han

Nazer’s main focus is the development of new strategies for reliable communication and computation over networks subject to noise and interference. Assistant Professor Aaron J. Schmidt hails from MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, where he served as a postdoctoral fellow and earned his PhD in 2008. Schmidt also held postdoctoral positions at the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi and at the University of Michigan. His research centers on ultrafast optical metrology, laser-material interaction and micro- and nanoscale energy transport. The Mechanical Engineering Department named William Hauser as Associate Professor of the Practice last May. He was the first faculty member in the College of Engineering to hold this position. Starting in the fall of 2010, Hauser will focus on design courses, including senior project courses, where he is eager to help students appreciate “how engineering principles shape practice in the real industrial environment.” Since joining Boston University in 1997, Hauser has been teaching manufacturing engineering classes as an adjunct professor and pursuing research on remanufacturing. The College of Engineering and Technology Development Office at Boston University jointly appointed BME Adjunct Professor Arthur L. Rosenthal as Professor of Practice in Translational Research. [See story on p. 3.]

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Faculty Promotions Associate Professor Anna Swan (ECE), a faculty member in the ECE Department since 1999 and an expert in high spatial resolution spectroscopy, has received tenure. She is investigating electronic and vibrational properties and energy dissipation mechanisms of graphene and carbon nanotubes; the behavior of single, individual carbon nanotubes and quantum dots; and spectral self-interference spectroscopy for high resolution imaging and biosensing. Two other faculty members have been promoted from Assistant to Associate Professor. Since joining the ECE faculty in 2005, Associate Professor Prakash Ishwar (ECE) has pursued research in distributed signal processing, network information theory and image/video processing and coding. Associate Professor Catherine Klapperich (ME, BME) joined the College of Engineering faculty in 2003. She is pursuing research in the nanomechanics of hydrated biomaterials, gene expression in cells at the cell-biomaterial interface, and microfluidic device design. As director of the Biomedical Microdevices and Microenvironments Laboratory (BMML), Klapperich is focused on the design and engineering of manufacturable, disposable, microfluidic systems for low-cost, point-of-care, molecular diagnostics. The BMML is currently working on devices for the detection of infectious diarrhea, influenza and MRSA. —Mark Dwortzan

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Thank You for a Record Year Dear Friends: Thank you, and wow! Your generosity has set an all-time Engineering Annual Fund record. Not only that, but the number of leadership donors—those who gave over $1,000—also reached an all-time high at 100, double the number of just three years ago. Wow, again! This hasn’t been the case at other U.S. colleges and universities, where giving has been flat to down for the past two to three years. At the College of Engineering, giving is up by 145 percent, to $315,000. Dean Lutchen, the faculty, the staff and I deeply appreciate your strong interest and financial support, which enrich the experiences of our students in so many ways, including stipends that allow students to work with faculty in one of our many research laboratories; book awards that offset the costs of textbooks; student club support that offers connections and collaborations with professional engineers, and much, much more. I am sure you have heard the extraordinary news from our Admissions Office that Engineering applications are up 18 percent, and this fall’s incoming freshman class will be over 30 percent larger than last year’s—by about 100 students more than had been anticipated when acceptances were extended. Bright, ambitious young men and women are choosing to be educated at the BU College of Engineering in record numbers. You can see the trends: your College is attracting more students, and they have higher SAT scores, class ranks, and grades than ever before. Truly exceptional new faculty members are joining the team, as you can read in this magazine. Many friends, like you, are making their first gift to Engineering, or a larger gift, or a leadership gift, making the College of Engineering an even finer learning environment for undergraduates and graduate students. And the innovations and research achievements of our faculty are winning more honors, awards, international media attention and competitive funding—and they are touching lives more profoundly than ever. Dean Lutchen’s leadership and energy are transforming the College and the way engineers are educated. As you read this, a visionary strategic plan for the College has just been approved, and a capital campaign of historic proportions is being planned to fund it. The Dean, our Annual Giving Development Officer Jinara Reyes and I are traveling the United States meeting with alumni and parents to put the finishing touches on the plan, and to invite more generous friends—like you—to support it. Why is this so urgent? To put it simply, the challenges humanity faces are more acute, complex, persistent, and global than at any time in history. Only “societal engineers”—young people whose quantitative, analytical and problem-solving abilities are matched by superior communication skills, systems thinking, a passion for innovation, an understanding of the business context of engineering, a grasp of the intersection between technology and public policy, and the ability to work and lead as members of a team—will be ready to tackle the “Grand Challenges.” The campaign will enable the College to prepare them. At Engineering Commencement last spring, Dan Ryan ’10 said, “As we look to the future, we know that there will be no shortage of challenges. We hear about these challenges every day: in energy, clean water, aging infrastructure, and climate change. These are not trivial problems. They are big. They are tough. But that’s the point. We are engineers, and we solve the big problems.” We invite you to join us in this great undertaking. With warm thanks and best wishes,

Bruce Jordan, Assistant Dean, Development & Alumni Relations

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Engineering Annual Fund Donors President’s Associates ($10,000– $24,999) Professor Theo de Winter† Mr. Ralf T. Faber ° Mr. David Francis Kiersznowski (’85) Mr. Husam H. Nazer • (’95) Dean’s Circle ($5,000–$9,999) Mr. John E. Abele ° Mr. Gregg E. Adkin§ ° (’86) Mr. Adel Bedry Al-Saleh (’87) Mr. Wayne Cheung (’99) Mr. Roger A. Dorf ° (’70) Mr. Ronald Gene Garriques ° (’86) Norman E. Gaut, PhD ° Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund Mr. Joseph P. Healey ° (’88) Mr. David E. Hollowell § ‡ (’69, ’72, GSM’74) Kathleen A. Hollowell, EdD§ (GRS’71, SED’77) Mr. Dean L. Kamen ° (HON’06) Mr. and Mrs. Peter Kwan Mr. John A. Maccarone§ ° (’66) Mrs. Minda G. Reidy (SMG’82, GSM’84) Mr. Richard D. Reidy ° (SMG’82) Binoy K. Singh, MD§ ‡ (’89) Leadership Circle ($2,500–$4,999) Best Automatic Sprinkler Corp. Mr. Edward S. W. Boesel (’70) Mr. Matthew S. Bopp (’08) Mr. and Mrs. James F. Bopp Jr. Mr. Nassib George Chamoun (’86) Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund§ General Electric Company Mr. Amit Jain ° (’85, ’88) Mr. William C. Kurtz§ (’60) Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen† § Mr. Carl L. Myers Jr.§ (’65) Raytheon Charitable Gift Fund§ Dr. Arnold D. Scheller Jr. (’69) Mazen Snobar and Naheel Al-Husseini Mr. John J. Tegan III ° (’88) Mr. John J. Ullo ° Ms. Janice K. Zika§ (’84) Benefactor Circle ($1,000–$2,499) Accenture Foundation, Inc.§ Mr. Marc Jason Albanese (’99, ’03)

Professor Dorothy Claire Attaway† (GRS’84, ’88) Mr. Charles E. Bascom§ (’64) The Elizabeth Bascom Charitable Lead Unitrust§ Mr. Christopher H. Brousseau§ (’91) Ms. Sarah Harpley Brukilacchio (’89) Mr. Ignatius D. Calalang (’88, ’99) Mrs. Deborah H. Caplan§ (’90) Mr. Brian A. Clebowicz (’82) Mr. Peter K. Cocolis§ (’64) Mr. David Cohen Mr. Jason Paul Colacchio (’90) David Dean, DMD§ (’73) Professor Charles DeLisi† Tahsin Mark Ergin, MD§ (’81) Ms. Kerry Corrigan Foley§ (’91) Mr. Patrick J. Foley§ (’91, ’94) Mr. James Y. Fong (’71, ’74) Ms. Janie M. Fouke ° Ms. Janet A. Fraser (’81) Richard A. Fuller, PhD§ • (’88) Ms. Lisa W. Gill Dr. Jennifer Ruth Gruber§ (’99, ’99) Mr. Roger A. Hajjar • (’88) Dr. Kenneth E. Hancock§ (’92, ’01) Mr. William T. Hathaway IV§ (’65) Mr. Brendon J. Howe • (’84) Robert H. Howland, MD§ (’82) Mr. Kent W. Hughes (’79)§ Ms. Ruth A. Hunter ‡ (’64, GSM’86) Mr. William I. Huyett ° Innovations in Optics Inc. Mr. Paul Karger (’00) Mr. Ezra D. Kucharz (’90) Ms. Karen Elizabeth Kullas ‡ (’77) Mr. Ting Wai Lai (’95, ’97) Professor Min-Chang Lee† Mr. Yu-Jen Lin Mr. Nicholas J. Lippis III§ ° (’84, ’89) Dr. and Mrs. Daniel C. Maneval§ (’82) Mr. Andrew J. Marsh (’83) Mr. Eric J. Meltzer (’82) George S. Ouellette, MD§ (’81) Mr. Anton T. Papp • (’90) Kevin Kit Parker, PhD (’89) Mr. Sanjay Patel§ (’87) Mr. James S. Paulsen§ (’69, ’72) Pfizer Foundation Mr. Brooks S. Read§ (’81) Mr. Alan Rottman Professor Ronald A. Roy† Mr. George M. Savage • (’81) Mr. Gregory D. Seiden • (’80) Frank and Edith Steranka Mr. Francis A. Tiernan • (’70)

† Faculty/Staff

• West Coast Alumni Leadership Council

§ 5-Year Consecutive Donor

‡ ENG Alumni Board Member

° Dean’s Engineering Leadership Advisory Board

Mr. Francis J. Troise§ (’87) Twin Focus Capital Partners, LLC Verizon Foundation§ Mr. Gordon R. Walsh§ (’67, ’68, GSM’71) Mr. and Mrs. Mark L. Wilkie Mrs. Alice J. Winston§ (SED’65) Mr. Berl P. Winston§ (’64) Donors $500–$999 Barclays Bank Foundation C. R. Bard Foundation Inc. Mrs. Marilynne Belna Boeing Inc.§ Mr. Stephen Michael Campbell§ (’97) Dr. Brant A. Cheikes§ (’84) Mr. Salvatore J. De Amicis§ (’55) Mr. Howard C. Ehrlich§ (’60) Mr. Earl Bernard Finney Jr.§ (’94) Mr. Stephen P. Flosdorf (’84) Mr. Carl Henry Ford (’93) FPL Group Foundation Inc. GE Foundation§ Steven D. Girouard, PhD (’89) Ms. Mary Ann Givens (’92) Ms. Regina K. Gorski Carolan (’97, ’03) Dr. Warren M. Grill (’89) Mr. Bradley Steven Howe • (’84, ’89) Mr. David H. Johnson § ‡ (’65, ’66) Mr. Ronald H. Johnson§ (’59) Johnson & Johnson Mr. Bruce C. Jordan† (’99) Ms. Kyung-Wha Kang Mrs. Barbara A. Kowack-Murthy (’90) Mr. David W. Lacey (’65) Ms. Adene Lacy Mr. Thomas Peter Lisowski (’95) Shaun P. McManimon, MD (’83) The Medtronic Foundation Mr. Walther Thomas Meier (’88, MET’04) Mr. Jeffrey M. Melzak (CAS’84) Mrs. Julie S. Melzak (’87) Ms. Kim Quyen Vu Pham (’91) Ms. Lisa Pope Mr. Ram Das Rao (’88) Mrs. Jacqueline Marie Reed (’88) Bryn J. H. Reina, MD (SAR’92) G. Anthony Reina, MD (’93) Dr. Brahm Alexander Rhodes (’85, ’88, GRS’91) Mr. Kyle Richard (’86) Ms. Sandra L. Rivas-Hall§ (’81) Mr. Gregory Nicholas Saccoccio (’94) Mrs. Maria A. Scardera§ (’84) Dr. Eric J. Sheppard (’83) Ms. Juliet E. Sonkoly (’00) Professor Malvin C. Teich† H. T. Than, Esq. (’85, LAW’93) Mr. Kenneth C. Tolides§ (’58) United Technologies§ Mr. William Walter Weiss§ (’83, ’97) Robert P. Wotiz, PhD (’99, ’05, ’06)

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Donors $250–$499 Mr. Muhanad Al-Sultan (’92) AT&T Foundation Mrs. Colleen Barry Athans§ (’89) Colleen B. Athans Trust§ Mr. Norman L. Bailis§ (’65) Dr. Carissa Lynn Bellardine Black (’01, ’03, ’06) John E. Belmonte, PhD (CAS’77, GRS’85) Mr. Robert J. Berkovits§ (’77) William D. Brizzee, DDS (SDM’93) Mr. James Joseph Byrne§ (’93) Dr. and Mrs. Steven M. Cassell Ms. Jung Cho Mr. Joseph E. Coffey Jr. (’72) Susan Long Crockett, Esq. (’84) Mr. Daniel C. Cullinane Jr.§ (’63) Peter M. Dichiara, Esq. (’85, LAW’93) Mr. and Mrs. Allan J. Dolinski Mr. Robert A. Downey (’61) Mr. Michael Duchnowski ‡ (’91, ’93) Mr. John Eldridge Mr. Harry W. Erickson (’53, ’61) Mr. William Evans Ralph G. Ganick, MD (CAS’67, MED’67) Mr. John M. Garvey (’86) Global Impact§ Goodrich Foundation Partners in Giving Mr. Antonio Gross§ (’69) Mr. George C. Guerra (’84) Mr. Bader Mohammed Hawary (’01, 02) Michael and Theresa Hluchyj Ms. Marjorie Fong-Fei Hsu (’86, GSM’93) Mr. Thomas E. Kane William J. Karlon, PhD (’88, ’91) Mr. Thomas Francis Kelly III (’89) Mr. Steven B. Kushnick§ (’80) Steven B. Kushnick, P.E., Inc.§ Mr. and Mrs. Paul Kwakyi Mr. Manuel A. Landa (’66) Mr. and Mrs. Kwok Shing Lee Mr. Peter Frank Martin (’70) Mr. George P. Matisse (’89, GSM’91) Mr. Steven J. McCarthy (’85) Robert C. McKinstry, MD§ (’84) Ms. Kathleen L. McLaughlin (’87) Microsoft Giving Campaign/Matching Prog. Mr. David S. Miller (’91, ’94) Professor Theodore D. Moustakas† § Mr. Scott Muirhead† Mr. William E. Neifert§ (’90, ’92) Mr. Walter Charles Nicolson§ (DGE’51, ENG’64) Mr. Kevin Michael O’Brien (’93) Ms. Pamela A. Oliver§ (’84) Oracle Corporation Pitney Bowes Inc. Mr. James David Quinty (’86) 29

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Donors $100–$249 Aetna Foundation Inc. Ms. Elizabeth Ann Afanasewicz (’05) Commander William Thomas Alex, USN (’89) Mr. James Douglas Alman§ (’87) Mr. Mohammad Al-Ramadhan Ms. Cheryl Armstrong (’70) Mr. George J. Arouchon§ (’54) AT&T Foundation Ms. Karen Tune Bain (’87) Bank of America Foundation Deepak Bapna, PhD (’92) Mr. Victor Libunao Bartolome (’07) Professor Soumendra N. Basu† Mr. Edward Bender (’81) Mr. Kenneth B. Benson§ (’63) Mr. Peter Bernard (’88) Mrs. Laura J. Bickmeier (’98) Krista Blum Mr. Theodore A. Bogdanski Jr. (’86) Ms. Lori B. Bornstein (’88) Mr. Mirza Borogovac (’00) Dr. Alfred S. Brothers Jr. (’64) Mr. Darryl W. Brown (’78) Mr. Andrew R. Brughera† § (’95) Ms. Laura C. Brutman (’89) Mr. Kevin Henry Burek (’08) Mr. Michael Burns Steven J. Cagnetta, Esq. (LAW’91) Mr. Marc K. Cannon§ (’82) Captain Ezra Betzalel Caplan (’04) Dr. and Mrs. Howard Neil Caplan§ Mr. Francis J. Capone (’59) Mr. William Carmody Mr. Frederic D. Carter III (’97) Mr. David A. Casavant (’85, ’88) Dr. Thomas Eugene Chamberlain (’61) Ms. Tatiana Chapsky (’81) Mr. and Mrs. Peter Kevin Cherry Mr. Howard T. Chun (’83) 30

Mr. Peter Michael Cirak ‡ (’01, ’07) Ms. Deborah A. Clark Mr. and Mrs. G. T. Clark Mr. Richard H. Coco§ (’62) Mr. and Mrs. Richard A. Colby§ Mr. Sean A. Collignon (’09) William H. Colwill, PhD (’70) Combined Jewish Philanthropies Mr. Paul Couto (’94) Mr. Christopher J. Csencsits§ (’87) Mr. Michael Joseph Cunha (’04, ’06) Mr. Anthony Cuomo Jr.§ (’93) Mr. Richard D. Curtis (’58) Mr. Wei Dai (’99) Mr. Abdulrasul A. Damji (’85, ’90) Mr. Frank Henry Daurio§ (’69) Mr. Hemang D. Dave Mr. J. Evan Deardorff (’93) Mr. Paul L. C. DeBeasi (’79) Ms. Vandana Dhar Mr. Raymond Diaz§ (’84) Ms. Sheila J. Dooley§ (’91) Mr. Andrew Edward Dudek (’03) Mr. Kenneth Joseph Dunn§ (’67) Mr. Jean F. Duvivier (’55) Ms. Maureen O. Ehrlicher Mr. Charles R. Enriquez (’92) Mr. Gustavo Patricio Espinosa (’91) Ms. Lisa Feldman Miss Martha E. Ferris (’82) Mrs. Sharon Kaiser Fincher§ (’82) Tamara Noel Fitzgerald, MD, PhD (’97, ’04, MED’04) Ms. Marie C. Flaherty Mr. Stephen P. Foraste ‡ (’91, ’94) Mr. Robert Frederic Frechette (’93) Mr. Timothy Fredman Mr. Gary A. Freeman (’86) Mr. David William Freitag§ (’91) Mr. Dominic Edward Fullenkamp (’05) Dr. Jaime M. Galiano (’86) Michael & Teresa Gancarz Mr. Douglas Robert George (’90) Mr. Patrick Gillooly (’87) Mr. Ryan E. Gleason (’08) Mr. Lance B. Goddard (’90) Mr. Richard Goodwin Gould (CGS’85, ENG’90) Mr. Douglas W. Graham (’86) Mr. Gavin Layton Gray (’05) Mr. Thomas A. Greeley § (’87) Mr. Charles J. Green§ (’79) Mrs. Dorothy P. Greenberg Ms. Yvonne M. Grover Gruber Family Foundation Ms. Sarah Meyer Gunnels (’04, GSM’06) Daniel Stuart Hagg, MD (’95) Ms. Dale H. Hall (’86) Mr. Roswell G. Hall III (’72) Miss Susan Marie Hammel§ (’86) Mr. Jul-Gi Anthony Han (’03) Mr. Arthur R. Hathaway§ (’59)

BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

A Virtuous Cycle Photo courtesy of Anton Papp

Mr. James H. Ritteman (’75, GSM’75) Mr. Jeffrey Thomas Roy (’95) Don Rushing Frank Nicholas Salamone, MD§ (’94) Mr. Michael L. Salamone§ (’84) William L. Salzer, MD (’72) Ms. Julie Sperry Mr. Frederic J. Syrjala§ (’58, ’60) Mr. Victor Kay Tan (’85) Ms. Michelle F. Tortolani (’82, ’89) Mr. Christopher Tuzzo (’89) UBS Americas PAC Charity Match Program UBS Foundation USA Mr. Maxim Umnov (’01) United Technologies Corporation Mr. Chris Van Erp (’86) Whitney Place§ Major Matthew Alan Zahn (’94) Mrs. Gracemarie F. Zambuto (’90)

Growing up in the 1970s on Long Island, Anton Papp (’90) became enamored with the work of Chuck Sewell, a family friend and chief test pilot for Grumman Aerospace Corporation. Inspired by Sewell’s exploits on the F-14 Tomcat, a supersonic fighter, Papp decided he would do whatever it took to follow in his footsteps. He enrolled in the College of Engineering on an ROTC scholarship and graduated with an electrical engineering degree Anton Papp ‘90 that gave him a foundation of technical and analytical skills that has fueled his career ever since. Over the next eight years, Papp served as an F-14 pilot and flight instructor, graduated from the U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School (Top Gun), patrolled the no-fly zone in southern Iraq and logged more than 300 carrier landings. Then, having run out of challenges in naval aviation, he entered another world that had also fascinated him since boyhood—Wall Street. After earning an MBA at Columbia University, he spent the next 10 years as an investment banker. “I was able to use my engineering background when working with technical companies,” he says, “and found investment banking similar in many ways to the fighter pilot culture— filled with Type A, polished professionals.” In July Papp joined Aprimo, Inc. as Vice President of Corporate Development, where he spearheads the integrated marketing software company’s corporate strategy and mergers and acquisitions. The technical and analytical skills that Papp honed at the College of Engineering have energized not only his three careers, but also his service on the College’s West Coast Alumni Leadership Council. He is now supporting the Council’s efforts to bring a more entrepreneurial edge to the College’s curriculum and faculty research. “We’re working to create a virtuous cycle where an idea is born at the College of Engineering, gets turned into intellectual property, and creates new jobs for ENG alumni—inspiring them, in turn, to become donors to the College,” he says. Papp embodies the principle: having converted four years at the College into his own “intellectual property” and several dream jobs, he is contributing both time and money. Bullish on the College of Engineering’s future prospects, Papp recently became a Leadership Circle donor to the ENG Annual Fund. “I’m excited to help create this virtuous cycle and to leverage the assets of Boston University—from the School of Law to the School of Management—to help bring the fruits of College of Engineering innovation to the world,” Papp says. “By engaging alumni and acting on their ideas, Dean Lutchen is making great strides in this effort.” —Mark Dwortzan

HonorRoll

Mr. Edwin Paul Heaney Jr. (’86) Mr. Richard L. Heilman (’72) Mrs. Sheila M. Hemeon-Heyer (’81) Mr. William Heres (’92, ’97) Mr. David I. Herman§ (’70) Anne E. Hines, PhD§ (’87) Mr. Yue-shun E. Ho§ (’89) Mr. Spencer J. Hogan (’98) IBM Corporation§ Mr. and Mrs. Antonio T. Infante Intel Foundation Mr. Shahram Irajpour (’03, GSM’03) Mr. Richard S. Jamieson§ (’62) Mr. Richard Elwyn Jenness§ (’63) Dr. Yuan Jing (’02, ’05) Mr. Donald R. Johnson (’65) Mr. Hyun Jun Jung§ (’93) Mr. Venkatesh Kannuraj Mr. Danny Kao Mrs. Elaine R. Kasparian Mr. Nicholas Kurt Katzenberger (’94) Mr. Michael N. Keefe ‡ (’89) Mr. Devon James Kehoe (’85) Mr. Robert E. Kelley§ (’58) Mr. Alexander Ming-Che Ko (’10) Mr. Georgi Korobanov (’06) Mr. Nikesh Kotecha (’99) Mr. and Mrs. Roy A. Kraus§ Ms. Jonida Kulla (’07) Mr. and Mrs. Subi Kulla§ Richard T. La Brecque, EdD (SED’59, SED’71) Mr. Daniel LaCroix Dan LaCroix Electric Co. Mr. Michael Leung Laiman§ (’86) Mr. Ronnie M. Lajoie (’84) Mr. Richard Lally†§ (MET’99) Mr. Stephen Peter Lalooses § ‡ (’99) Mr. David Richard Lancia Jr. ‡ (’02, ’04) Mr. David J. Languedoc§ (’87) Mr. Jesadang Laohaprasit (’97) Mr. Thien-Si Le (’84, MET’98) Mr. Tuan A. Le (’82) Mr. Larry Leszczynski (’85) Mr. Robert Christopher Levin (’87) Ms. Marion Lippis Mr. Dennis Lo Mr. Robert H. Locke ‡ (’63) Mr. Robert W. Locke (’61) Lockheed Martin Scholarship Program Jennifer C. Logan, MD (’79, ’80) Mr. Charles P. Long (’57, MET’76) Mr. David W. Lowry (’54) Ms. Cynthia Lysek Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Eugene Mabius§ Mr. and Mrs. Scott L. Mader

Henry A. Magnuson, DSc § (’78) Mr. Jean R. Malenfant§ (’60) Mr. Mark Manton Mr. Eric Maxwell (’98) Mr. Ronald S. Maxwell§ (’78) Mr. Gregory Alexander McCarthy (’06) Ms. Lindsey McCullough† § Mr. Michael James McCullough§ (’03) Mr. Peter Meaden Ms. Janine R. Mereb (’84, GRS’84) Merrill Lynch & Company Foundation Mr. Jacob Isaac Miller (’08) Mr. James G. Miller (’84) Ms. Alice Minkoff Mr. John N. Mitropoulos§ (’56, ’59) Mr. David P. Moriarty (’64) Mr. John Morrissey (’88) Motorola Foundation Mr. Jason Moy (’05) John W. Mroszczyk, PhD ‡ (’77) Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence J. Munini Mr. Matthew F. Murphy (’85) Miss Robin L. Murray (’90) Ms. Mindy Joy Myers Mr. Bruce Ng§ (’84) Mr. Kenneth Khanh Nguyen§ (’89) Northeast Consulting Engineers, Inc. Miss Elizabeth Bernadette O’Dowd (’93) Mrs. Christine M. O’Toole (’91) Cristina M. Palumbo, MD (’95, MED’99) Dr. Karen A. Panetta ‡ (’85) Mr. Christos I. Panidis (’07) Mr. Gerassimos Papathanassiou (’95) Mr. and Mrs. Peter Pappas Joon B. Park, PhD (’67) Mrs. Christina J. Pasdo (’91) Joseph Francis Piazza, MD (CAS’73) Dr. Herbert Samuel Plovnick (CAS’67, MED’71) Mr. Michael Poling Mr. John J. Post§ (’64) Mr. Peter I. Presel§ (’61) Mr. William George Quirk§ (’62) Mr. Amit Raybardhan (’05) Mr. Christopher John Reaney (’87) Ms. Sandra Dee Reulet (’86) Ms. Jinara D. Reyes† (CAS’88, GSM’99) Joan And John Ripple Mr. Ethan Frederick Robbins (’04) Mr. Henry A. Robinson (’57) Mr. and Mrs. Paul C. Rohr§ Mr. Derek M. Russell (’88) Ms. Melanie Sadofsky Mr. Paul David Schauble (’03) Mr. Joseph S. Schechter (’78) Mr. Bertram J. Schmitz Jr. (’62)

† Faculty/Staff

• West Coast Alumni Leadership Council

§ 5-Year Consecutive Donor

‡ ENG Alumni Board Member

Mr. Robert E. Schneider (’79) Ms. Lisa Robinson Schoeller§ (’82, GSM’98) Mr. Ushir Naresh Shah (’98) Mr. Joshua Corey Shaw (’98) Mr. Ananth Shenoy (’01) Ms. Maria Shivers Mr. Gordon A. Shogren (’59) Suzanne and Alan Simoncini Mr. Chi-Kai Victor Sin (’88, CAS’88) Mr. George Skandalakis (’97) Ms. Monica Louise Slegar (’02, GSM’05) Ms. Pamela L. Sonnelitter§ (’81) Sparkle Designs Mr. Lawrence Spaziani Jr. (’84, ’88) Mr. Gregory Louis Sperounes (’89) SPX Foundation Ms. Joan Squillacioti Ms. Laura M. Stefanski Mr. and Mrs. Dale Steichen Jane D. Stepak, Esq.§ (’78, CAS’78) Mrs. Margaret Zamora Stevens (’87) Mr. Eric R. Stutman§ (’93) Mr. Timothy Francis Styslinger (’90, ’92) Mr. Frank O. Sunderland (’72, GSM’74) Mr. Chinh Tan (’86, ’88) Mr. Alexander Westland Thomson§ (’85) Ms. Sarah Marie Tomasella (’04) Mr. and Mrs. Craig L. Tommila Mrs. Heather Johnson Tracey§ (’91) Mr. Jon T. Tremmel (’73) Mr. Daniel A. Tyszka§ (’94) Mr. Jason M. Ulberg§ (’98) Mr. and Mrs. Peter L. Uy Mr. Viktor Vajda ‡ (’02, ’04, MET’06) Mr. Guy Vandevoordt§ Mr. Anthony Vitullo Jr. (’81) Mr. and Mrs. Richard L. Voltz Jr. Ms. Wendy Wan (’89) Mr. Jui-Tai Wang§ (’85) Ms. Valerie Ward Ms. Mary Anne Wassenberg (’90) Mr. Charles William Wende (’98) Mr. Thomas G. Westbrook (’91) Mr. Brian James Wherry (’98) Mr. Roger D. Williams ‡ (’68) Mr. K. Wilson§ (’91) Mr. Philip T. Winterson (’62) Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence P. Wirsing Mr. Edward C. Wong (’61, ’69) Xerox Corporation§ Michael Steven Young, MD (’85, ’89, MED’91) Dr. Guo-Xiang Yu (’95) Mr. Alberto N. Zacarias (’89, ’90) Miss Diane Frances Zanca (’85) Mr. Joshua Saul Zeisel (’07) Mr. and Mrs. David V. Zolnierz

° Dean’s Engineering Leadership Advisory Board Fall 2 010 M A G A Z I N E

www.bu.edu/eng

Donors up to $100 1999 Inter Vivo Trust of D & C Sanford Mr. Rommel Acuna (’93) Mr. Jason David Adams (’06, ’08) Scott & Jennifer Adkins Ms. Susan Adkins Valery & Joe Adkins Sachin and Rachana Agarwal† (GRS’02) Mr. and Mrs. Mufutau M. Agboola Mr. Moshe Alamaro (’96) Ms. Janet M. Allaire§ Mr. and Mrs. Dilip Amin Analog Devices Inc.§ Mr. Mark Thomas Andersen (’06) Paul A. and Mary K. Anderson Miss Susan J. Angell§ (’86) Ms. Melanie Anthony Mr. Joseph Anthony Mr. Lewis S. Applebaum§ (’56) Mr. Gregory Terzian Arzoomanian (’84) Mr. Michael Olawale Ashenuga (’92) Ms. Elisabeth A. Ashforth Mr. Charles S. Asmar Jr.§ (’55, ’58) Mr. Ben Athanasiou§ (’67, ’69) Mr. Olalekan Adeoye Babaniyi (’10) Mr. and Mrs. Stephen L. Babcock Mr. Youssef G. Bakhos (’82) Mr. Jimmy Balder Mr. Raymond F. Ball (’72) Mr. Edward M. Ballanco (’91) Ms. Jane A. Bangert Ms. Martha Bannister Mr. Patrick J. Barry (’57) Mr. Thomas S. Bartkiewicz (’82) Mr. and Mrs. Charles Bartlett BD Associate Giving Campaign Beaverdam Ventures Mr. John N. Beck (’89) Mr. Eric Albiny Bene (’95) Mr. Bryan H. Benesch (’78) Mr. Ronald A. Benius§ (’66) Mr. and Mrs. Charles K. Bennett Mr. Stanislav Beran§ (’69) Ms. Debra Berry Ms. Genevieve Marie Betro (’07) Mrs. Cecile Beyh (’87) Ms. Nidhi Bhatia (’00, GRS’01) Dr. Kim Lois Blackwell (’81) Mr. Steven Blaha Mr. Gregory Ernest Blanchard§ (’96) Ms. Jo-Ann Blatchford (’84) Ms. Robin Fischer Blatt (’84) Ms. Sheila B. Bleakley Mr. John Jude Bolton (’89) Ms. Alicia Bolze Mr. Mark E. Bonadies (’95) Mr. Leonidas Boutsikaris Ms. Melissa Nicole Bowler (’09) Mr. and Mrs. Thomas P. Boyle Mrs. Kathleen Stosser Brennan (SAR’91) Mr. Harry T. Breul§ (’55) 31

HonorRoll

Ms. Sharon M. Britton (’83) Mr. John C. Broderick (’70, ’77) Ms. Susan Brooks Mr. Charles A. Brown§ (’68) Mr. Adam Bulakowski (’99) Mr. Kevin Burke Mr. Richard Adam Burriola (’10) Ms. Ana Bustin† Mr. Denis C. Bustin Mrs. Kathleen M. Caldara (’83) Mr. Ian B. Cameron (’90) Mr. Melih Canti (’80) Ms. Kathleen Carande Mr. Mark F. Cardono§ (’91) Mr. John S. Carney Jr. (’62) Ms. Maria Carpenter Mr. and Mrs. Thomas A. Casciani Mr. Paul Casey (’88) Ms. Judith Castaneda Ms. Denise Laura Cervia Mr. Thomas Chagnon Mr. William L. Chan (’79, ’85) Mr. Min Heng Chang Mr. John Chappell Mr. Jimmy Chi-Kim Chau (’09) Mr. Jong H. Chen (’96) Mrs. Patricia L. Chen (’02, ’04) Mr. Aravind Cherukuri (’96) Ms. Nadette Chhim Mr. Edmond W. Chin§ (’74, GSM’75) Ms. Susan Y. Chin (SED’75) Mr. Andrew S. Chow (’07) Mrs. Lydia Dyer Chute (PAL’34) Ms. Ruth Ciani-Brower (’92) Mr. Steven J. Cicoria (’65) Mrs. June S. Clark (’84) Ms. Tricia Kay Clark (’99) Mr. Gregory C. Clausen Mr. and Mrs. Steven L. Cockrell§ Mr. Alan J. Colburn (’79) Mr. David C. Collins (’05) Mrs. Carolyn Renea Collins-Myrie (’94, ’00) Mr. Brian G. Colozzi§ (’77) Ms. Elizabeth Grace Condliffe (’04) Mr. Joseph Michael Coombs (’10) Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Crawford§ Mr. Ronald P. Crevier (’81) Mrs. Kendra Castello Crosby (’86) Mr. Thomas R. Cross§ (’65) Mr. Brian Joseph Cruise (’97) Dr. Hengdong Cui (’06, ’07) Mr. David Dalgarno Mr. Vinny Dang (’89) Ms. Susan K. Daniels§ (’81) Mr. H. Alan Daniels§ (’59) Mr. Dennis J. D’Antona§ (’73) Mr. Maxim Dashouk (’10) Ms. Trindade DaSilva Mr. Benjamin Crocker Davenny§ (’00) Mr. Benjamin N. Davies (’65) Ms. Ghislaine de Rochefort 32

Ms. Lisa Carr De Vine (’87, MET’91) Dr. Gregory Clarke DeAngelis (’87) Mr. Nicolay Wladimir Del Salto (’90) Ms. Julia Louise Delogu (’09) Mr. Robert J. D’Entremont§ (’62) Mr. Osmund DeSouza Mr. Adam Ross Detwiler ‡ (’09) Thomas M. DiCicco Jr., MD (’01) Mr. George W. Dietel (’62) Mr. Gabriel V. DiFilippo (’58) Mr. Milind Divadkar Ms. Weina Dorsky§ (’03) Kamalesh Doshi Mr. Timothy E. Dowling (’82) Mr. George Doyle Ms. Shannon H. Duffy Mr. Timothy Michael Durkin (’09) Mr. Howard Edelman (’83) Mr. James O. Edwards (’57) Mr. David S. Ehrhart§ (’92) Gerald Richard Eisler, PhD§ (’72) Mr. Dean R. Estabrook (’57) Mr. David Louis Feldman§ (’66) Mr. Robert J. Flaherty Jr.§ (’68) Mr. Justin Flammia (’06) Dr. James Patrick Flanigon (’09) Mr. Pedro Flores Mr. Harvey K. Ford (’64) Mr. Donald Allen Foster§ (’92) Ms. Helaine R. Friedlander† (SED’75) Dr. Roger Joseph Gagnon§ (’68) Michael P. Gallagher, MD (’88) Mr. David Garcia Mrs. Sharon B. Garde§ (’86) Dr. Timothy Stevens Gardner • (’00) Barry & Sandra Gertz Mr. George L. Getchell§ (’54) Mr. Subhen Ghosh Ms. Hilda L. Gigioli (’95) Mrs. Rita Gauthier Gigliotti (’86) Mr. and Mrs. Henry Giller Mr. Anthony Giordano Mr. Frederick G. W. Gleitsmann§ (’61) Mr. Alexander G. Gorbach Mr. John S. Graham (’91) Ms. Karen Grasso Mrs. Katherine Jedzinak Greaney (’00) Ms. Marilyn Gresham Ensign Sarah Caroline Haas (’07) Joseph E. Hale, PhD (’83) Ms. Linda L. Hall Mr. William T. Hamilton§ (’68, MET’75) Mr. Aslam Taher Handy§ (’90) Ms. Clare Hanlon Ms. Eleanore O’Dea Elizabeth Hanlon (’10) Ms. Pamela Gayle Harris Dr. Rhonda E. Harrison (’98, ’04) Mr. Lance D. Harry (’94) Linda and Steven Hatem Mr. and Mrs. Gerard A. Hathaway Mr. Richard A. Heath (’80)

BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

Ms. Andrea L. Heyda (’95) Ms. April Heyman Mr. James V. Hickey (’57) Ms. Carly Holstein (’08) Mr. Peter T. Houston§ (’58) Mr. Peter F. Hryniewicz III (’86) Mr. Gregory Hunter Mr. and Mrs. Robert Hurtado Mr. Robert J. Iacovone (’69) Mr. Hany N. Ibrahim (’93) Ms. Altynay Ilyassova (SMG’10) Mr. Anastasios Ioannidis§ (’87) Mr. and Mrs. Thomas M. Isaac Mr. John Jabara Jr. (’83) Ms. Anna Jablonka (’94) Ms. Lexyne McNealy Jackson (’02) Mr. Raymond L. Jalette† (’71, MET’74) Francis Bronislaus Jareczek Mr. Thomas E. Jeleniewski (’70) Mr. Alfred S. Johnson§ (’64) Mr. Andrzej Jonca Mr. Gary Kaftan§ (’60) Mr. Michael H. Kagan (’83) Mr. Theodore Kakavas§ (’95) Mr. Daniel Robert Kallman§ (’94) Mr. Hossein Kani Mr. John D. Kariouk§ (’84) Ms. Mary Kay Karlicek Mr. Walter S. Katuschenko (’60) Mr. Michael P. Kazenel (’80) Ms. Cheryl Kemmer Ms. Monika Kempf Mrs. Angelina L. Khayami (’83) Mr. Mohsen Khayami (’83) Ms. Debra Gordon Kiger (’82) Mr. Douglas J. Killian§ (’93) Ms. Won Kyung Kim Mr. Charles H. Kimball (’66) Ms. Johanna Kipping-Ruane Mr. and Mrs. Jack A. Klimp Mr. Matthew A. Knoll (’10) Ms. Lynne Koenigsknecht Mr. Peter Thomas Kuchler§ (’92) Mr. and Mrs. Nagarajor Kumar Ms. Vidhya Kumaresan Ms. Cathy Misa Kurata (’06) Mr. and Mrs. Stanford Y. Kuroda§ Mr. Boissevain Kwan§ (’83) Mrs. Janice Pu Lai Mr. Herbert T. Lake§ (’67) Ms. Francine Lalooses§ ‡ (’02, ’03) Mr. Jerry Keng Lam (’07) Ms. Rynn Lamb Mr. Vincent Edward Lauria (’01, ’02) Ms. Barbara S. Lavin (’84) Ms. Leah Mae Lemont (’10) Mr. Peter E. Lenk§ (’78) Mr. Daniel John Leonardis§ (’04) Ms. Pui Leng Leong (’10) Mr. Harold E. Lerner (’83) Mr. Peter W. Levalley Mr. Alexander Levit

Mr. Jeffrey Powell Li (’09, GRS’09) Miss Mary Chong-Chin Liau (’88) Mr. Bosheng Lin (’98) Mr. Leonard P. Linardakis (’92) Mr. David B. Lindquist (’82) Mr. Michael Lingenfelter Mr. Victor Liu (’10) Mr. Peter Gerard Lombardozzi§ Ms. Margaret Lundin§ (’73) Ms. Barbara F. Lynch§ (’82) Mr. and Mrs. Karl J. Lynch Mrs. Patricia A. MacDougall Mr. Joseph John Madden (’60) Ms. Amanda Magee† Mrs. Agnes D. Malaret-Collazo (’87) Mr. Rajiv K. Manchanda (’89) Mr. and Mrs. Charles H. Maneval Mr. Edward S. Mansfield§ (’64, ’68) Mr. and Mrs. Mario J. Marcaccio Jr. Ms. Donna S. Marn Ms. Heidi Martin Ms. Jacqueline Ann Martin (’10) Ms. Carol Martinelli Mr. Gregory J. Mascoli (’88) Mrs. Michelle M. Master (’98) Mr. Peter F. Masucci§ (’70) Mr. Manzer Masud Mr. Robert H. Mathews§ (’65) Mr. Vincent J. Mauro (’80) Dr. Robert E. McAulay Mr. Stephen A. McBride (’71, ’72, GSM’73) Mr. Francis P. McDermott§ (’62) Ms. Loretta C. H. McHugh (’00) Mrs. Bruce E. Mckeen Mr. Neil P. McManus§ (’59) John A. McNeill, PhD§ (’94) Mr. and Mrs. John H. McRury Mr. Armando Medeiros (’85) Dr. Philip J. Melchiorre (’84) Mr. David Mitchell Merer (’86) Ms. Laura Yolanda Miklos (’10) Ms. Deborah H. Miller Mr. James J. Miller Mrs. Sandra Carol Miller (’86) Mr. Valery Milshtein Mr. Michael Monahan Mr. Mark S. Moreira (’84) Mr. and Mrs. Robert F. Morgan Miss Linda E. Morgan-Giles (SED’76) Mr. Fred Morrison§ (’62) Mr. and Mrs. Kim Mosley Mr. James I. Mulzac (’57) Mr. William J. Murray§ (’81) Mr. Adam Michael Nadeau (’08) Mr. Michael M. Nadeau Richard P. Nalesnik, PhD (’60, COM’63) Ms. Hymavathi Nandakumar (’05) Mr. Amos Nascimento Mr. Peter Milton Nasveschuk (’06) Ms. Nancy Nelson Mr. and Mrs. Chun Kwong Ng

HonorRoll

Mr. Jimmy Ng (’07) Ms. Alice Ngan Mr. Ly Van Nguyen (’87) Mr. Steven R. Niemi (’91) Ms. Lisa M. Nocera Northrop Grumman Foundation§ Mr. Burt D. Ochs (’83) Mr. Jon P. Olafsson (’01) Mr. Andrew H. Olney§ (’90) Ms. Joyce O’Quinn Mrs. Rebecca L. Pachura (’86) Mr. Robert W. Paglierani (’66) Professor Uday Pal† Ms. Victoria Palmer Mr. Joseph Panetta Ms. Maryanna Panny Mr. Michael D. Paquette (’84) Mr. Ashok Patel Mr. Bharat Patel Mrs. Chrysanthea Kyprios Paul (’90) Ms. Kirsten H. Paulson (’82) Mr. Leonard H. Pauze Jr. (’57 Ms. Katherine Louise Pegors (’10) Ms. Jacqueline Pennisi Mr. and Mrs. Richard R. Peraino Javier J. Perez-Andreu, MD (’80) Ms. Tiffany Perng (’01) Ms. Vivian T. Perng Mr. and Mrs. Peter Peterson Mr. Robert C. Peterson§ (’57) Dr. Anthony Nicholas Pirri§ (’64) Edward A. Pohl, PhD (’84) Mr. Alvin Manuel Polsky§ (’58) Mr. Michael Samuel Prospect (’85, GSM’86) Mr. Hong Kin Pun (’04) Ms. Kimberly Puska Ms. Joanna Pyun (’10) Dr. Yiling Qiu (’10) Mr. Mikal Osman Rasheed Ms. Heather A. Rasich (’06) Ms. Brigid A. Raso Mrs. Alvin A. Rath Mr. Robert Timothy Raymond (’98) Mr. Daniel Reilly Mr. Geoffrey Michael Renaldo (’03) Mr. Donald Cyril Reny Jr. (’88) Mr. Gilbert Reynolds Mr. Travis Sebastian Rich (’10) Mr. Adam S. Riley (’07) Mr. Wayne Roache Mr. John Rooker Ms. Theresa Rousseau (’88) Mr. and Mrs. Alvin Edward S. Roxas Mr. Daniel Patrick Ryan (’10) Mr. and Mrs. Gary A. Saffie

Michael Salzberg Ms. Lisa Sama Mr. Juan Samper Mr. Dennis L. Sanford (’65) Lt. Colonel Thomas Anthony Santoro Jr. (’91) Mr. David Anthony Scaduto (’09) Mr. Jeremy Brian Schein (’10) Dr. and Mrs. Mark A. Schickler Mrs. Denise M. Schier§ (’81) Mr. Thomas G. Schlatter (’94) Mr. Albert Robinson Seeley (’85, MET’95) Mr. Michael Selover Mr. and Mrs. Steven Paul Shaeffer§ Ms. Sandra D. Shanaberger§ (’82) Mr. Neal K. Sharma (’01) Mr. and Mrs. William J. Shaw Mr. James F. Shea (’61) Mrs. Carol Hackett Sheridan§ (’83) Mr. Akash Mukesh Sheth (’10) Mr. Robert J. Shimkus (’68) Silicon Valley Community Foundation Ms. Elena Beth Simoncini (’10) Mr. Elly Aaron Sirotta† (’01, GSM’08) Dr. Stacey Linda Sirotta (SAR’01, ’03, ’08) Mr. Christopher Smith Mr. John F. Smith§ (’63) Mrs. Jessica Ann Sonnenfeld (’04) Mr. and Mrs. Grant T. Southard Mr. Tarik P. Soydan (’82, ’85) Ms. Minaelia Spergel Miss Katherine Elizabeth Spignese (’85) Mr. Dylan Patrick Steeg• (’95) Peter & Susanne Steiger Mr. Patrick Andreas Steiger (’10) Mr. and Mrs. Irnel Stephen Mr. Paul S. Strati (’52) Mr. Armand Stravato§ (CGS’57, ENG’58) David W. Streem, MD (’91) Major Rachel Dawn Voss Sullivan (’98, ’00) Mr. Michael L. Sullivan-Trainor (GSM’00) Sun Microsystem Foundation Mr. Charles Mark Sweet (’91) Ms. Sajada T. Syed Mr. Douglas Sylvia Mr. Edward L. Symonds (’87) Mr. Gary Szatkowski Ms. Laura Taddonio Mr. Francis Mitchell Taylor§ (’57) Mrs. Yoko Sano Taylor (’92) Mr. Gabriel M. Terrenzio§ (’56, ’57) Mr. and Mrs. Robert J. Theer§

† Faculty/Staff

• West Coast Alumni Leadership Council

§ 5-Year Consecutive Donor

‡ ENG Alumni Board Member

Ms. Sarah-Grace Horne Thomas† (’02, MET’05) Colonel Herbert D. Thompson Jr. (’66) Ms. Lisa Diane Tilley-Newman (’98) Dr. Bruce Paul Tis (’95) Mr. Richard W. Tong (’06) Mr. Randolph B. Tow (’66) Ms. Rosemarie Trigger Mr. Richard Tullo Ms. Natalie Turner Ms. Lauren Kapilinahe Kam Sim Tuthill (’09) Ms. Susan Tvedten Mr. Justin Vincent Tworek (’10) Mr. Marc Cosimo Ubaldino (’95) Mr. Rene Villanueva Ms. Carrie A. Vinch (’88) Mr. Paul Joseph Vizzio (’10) Mr. Tracy Steven Vonick (’89) Mr. Jacob A. Vormittag Dr. Gregory John Wagner§ (’96) Mr. Arthur M. Walker (’89) Mr. and Mrs. Dennis J. Walpole Mr. Edmund J. Walsh Jr.§ (’83, ’83) Patti and Frank Walsh Mr. Kevin Chia Hao Wang (’10) Mrs. Cecilia Warsawski (’82) Mr. and Mrs. John F. Waters§ Ms. Patricia R. Weber Mr. Norman S. Weinberg (’64) Mr. Jason Adam Weiner (’02) Mr. Conrad E. Weledji (’84) Ms. Jeannette Locke Wellman§ (’87) Mr. Joel Fritz West (’57 ) Mrs. Heather Bard White (’92) Mr. Andrew Ian Whiting (’02) Ms. Holly Widanka Mr. Albert Clay Williams (’89) Sarah and Rick Wilsterman Mr. and Mrs. Richard D. Wolcott Mr. Peter W. Wolniansky (’84) Mr. and Mrs. Steven E. Woloschin Mr. Hung Sing Wong Professor Joyce Wong† Mr. David M. Woodcock Mr. John Worth Mr. John W. Wright Mr. Barry Quan Wu§ (’86, ’92) Dr. Tao Wu (’07) Ms. Anna Alexandra Yanko (’09) Ms. Karen Yee Miss Rhan Yi (’88) Ms. Julie Jie Ling Young (’07) Mr. Wei Yu (’07) Mr. Guylherme Tobias Zaniratto (’98) Mr. Bennett M. Zarren (’63) Mr. Abdolreza Zehdar Dr. Robert Norman Zeitlin (’59 Dr. Peter Andrew Zink (’10) Mr. Todd E. Zive (’98)

Other ENG Funds In addition to contributions for specific research projects (such as the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Translational Research Partnership and the Henry Luce Foundation Professorship awards), the College also receives support from alumni, friends and foundations for the following programs: Anita Cuadrado Memorial Fund Presents annual awards to one or more ENG students who best exemplify the late Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Program’s spirit, commitment to the College and University and dedication to helping undergraduates. Adam Miller Senior Project Fund Supports the Biomedical Engineering Department’s Senior Project Program, including the annual Adam Miller Award for outstanding BME senior research project. Merrill Ebner Fund This fund supports student-based programs that foster creative design in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, with particular emphasis on supporting students interested in manufacturing engineering. This fund was started by Professor Merrill Ebner and continues in his honor. Ging S. Lee Community Service Award Fund Annually awards one or more ENG seniors who have made outstanding contributions in the area of community service. This awards honors Ging S. Lee (’70). ENG Dean’s Fund Supports special programs and academic activities at the Dean’s discretion.

° Dean’s Engineering Leadership Advisory Board

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HonorRoll Other Donors $1,000,000 or more Wallace H. Coulter Foundation§ $100,000–$999,999 The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Inc.§ The Ellison Medical Foundation Hartwell Foundation Juvenile Diabetes Foundation Int’l§ The Henry Luce Foundation Inc.§ Oxford Nanopore Technologies Limited Schlumberger Technology Corporation $10,000–$99,999 American Heart Association§ Mr. Stephen D. Bechtel Jr.§ S. D. Bechtel Jr. Foundation Burroughs Wellcome Fund§ Capella Photonics Inc. Deutsche Telecom Mr. Ronald Gene Garriques (’86) Japan Patent Office Lightwave Power The Mitre Corporation Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs Inc. Ohio Aerospace Institute Semiconductor Research Corporation

Sun Microsystems Inc. Mr. and Mrs. Philip Taymor Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution§ $1,000–$9,999 Professor Thomas G. Bifano§ Natalia Broude, PhD CombinatoRX Inc.§ Covidien Mr. Adam D. Crescenzi (’64) Professor Theo de Winter† § Mrs. Hanna G. Evans Genzyme Corporation§ Professor R. Glynn Holt† Professor Mark N. Horenstein† Johnson & Johnson§ Mrs. Marguerite P. Matson (’62, GSM’67) Pulmatrix Inc. Starkey Laboratories Inc. $100–$999 Rebecca A. Bates, PhD (’90, ’96) Ms. Ana Bustin† Mr. Denis C. Bustin Mr. Gregory Stuart Cordrey (’88) Mr. Jose Rolando Esquivel§ (’88) Mr. J. Peter Fasse Mr. Graham Fleming

Fraunhofer USA Inc. Mr. John M. Garvey§ (’86) Mr. John Gillespie (’85, ’87) Lydia M. Gregoret, PhD§ (CAS’86) Ms. Carol K. Ng-Lee (CAS’80) Jay B. Penafiel, MD (’90) Mr. Michael Thomas Watson (’96) Up to $100 Neil Aaronson Mr. John Agapiov Alliance Data Matching Gift Center Mr. Brian Bishop Barry Blesser Mr. Andrew R. Brughera§ (’95) Mr. Peter A. Cariani Ms. Catherine Carr Ms. Jennifer Chikar Mr. Wei Dai (’99) Mr. Rao Dan Mr. Peter Derleigh Mr. Robert Dowenitz Mr. Richard Fay Mr. and Mrs. Richard L. Freyman Dr. Frederick J. Gallun Mr. Ray Goldsworthy

Mr. Matthew Goupell Mr. Naman Gupta (’07) Mr. Klaus Hartung Dr. Antje Ihlefeld (GRS’02, ’07) Mr. Philip Joris Ms. Rachel Keen Ms. Duck Kim Professor Emeritus Shigeyuki Kuwada Adrian Lee Mr. Michael Oin Mr. Doug Oliver Sunil Puria Mr. Bill Rabinowitz Ms. Heather Reap Ms. Lisa Sanders Ms. Barbara Shinn-Cunningham† Chris Stecker Mr. Eric Thompson Dr. and Mrs. Herbert F. Voigt Mr. Bill Woods Ning Xiang Bosun Xie Zhiwen Xie Xiaoli Zhonli Pat Zurek

† Faculty/Staff

• West Coast Alumni Leadership Council

§ 5-Year Consecutive Donor

‡ ENG Alumni Board Member

° Dean’s Engineering Leadership Advisory Board

Class Notes 1997

Noah Malgeri, BS Boston, Massachusetts Noah has opened his new law firm, Law Offices of Noah V. Malgeri, LP, offering patent legal services. Email him at noah@ malgerilaw.com. Chris Nichols, BS Los Angeles, California Chris Nichols and his wife, Mora, welcomed their first child, Grace Ellen Louise, on April 24. Chris continues to work as a mechanical engineer in Los Angeles.

1998

Prospero Alexie Uybarreta, BS Edwards Air Force Base, California Prospero was honored with the 2009 BU ENG Service to Community Distinguished Alumnus Award. He is a U.S. Air Force major and experimental test pilot. In his 11-year Air Force career, he’s served two combat deployments to Afghanistan, served as an exchange pilot to the Indian Air Force, flown more than 3,600 hours in 26 aircraft, and completed two master’s degrees. He and his wife, Janice, have two children, Ella and Vic. Email Prospero at prosperouybarreta@ yahoo.com. 34

1999

Peter Velikin, BS Boston, Massachusetts After a successful career at EMC Inc. and at PTC (Parametric Technology Corp.), Peter was appointed vice president of marketing for Zmags Inc., a leading provider of digital publishing solutions and interactive collateral management. Peter oversees marketing and business development for the fast-growing company and enjoys helping to develop next-generation technology for digital documents and the challenge of expanding a global technology company.

2000

Ben Davenny, MS Somerville, Massachusetts Ben and his wife, Liz, announce the birth of their first child, Nora Joy, on January 9, 2010.

2001

Mario Zampolli, PhD The Hague, Netherlands Mario, a senior scientist at TNO Defense, Security and Safety, received the Institute of Acoustics’ 2010 A.B. Wood Medal and Prize for distinguished contributions to

BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

the application of underwater acoustics. Intended for early career candidates, the award was presented in April at the David Weston Memorial Symposium on Sonar Performance Assessment Tools in Cambridge, England. While at BU, Mario studied with ME Professor Allan D. Pierce and Associate Professor Robin O. Cleveland. Another recent ME alum, Preston S. Wilson (PhD’02) (now associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas-Austin), won the award in 2007.

2004

Ezra B. Caplan, BS Atlanta, Georgia Ezra recently graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering. He is a captain in the U.S. Air Force and has been stationed in the Washington, D.C. area since 2008. Email him at ezra.caplan@ yahoo.com. Thomas Piscatelli, BS Walpole, Massachusetts Thomas and Kristen (Dionne) Piscatelli (SAR’05,’07) were married on November 7, 2009, in Princeton, Massachusetts. Alyssa (Dionne) Johnson (CGS’01, SMG’03), Orley (White) Templeton

(SAR’05,’07), Rachel Neuman (SAR’05,’07), Melissa Rossi (SAR’05), Niverio Carvalho (ENG’04), Jesse Rusk (ENG’04) and Colin Boosey (ENG’04) were in the wedding party. Thomas is a manufacturing engineer for a medical device company and Kristen is a physical therapist at an acute rehabilitation hospital. After honeymooning in Italy, the couple is living in Walpole.

2008

Jacob Miller, BS Greensboro, North Carolina Jacob, an engineer in SPX Corporation’s Engineering Development Program, completed the requirements to be named an ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt. He is the only person in his company’s engineering rotational program and youngest employee to reach this level of certification. “I think it just emphasizes how well BU prepared me for my professional career,” he writes.

What are you doing? We want to hear from you! Send your class notes submissions to engalum@bu.edu or visit www.bu.edu/alumni/eng.

AlumniEvents Ready for the Challenges Ahead “The innovations of tomorrow are impossible to predict, but one thing is certain: They will change the world just as yesterday’s innovations changed the world for us,” said Daniel Ryan (EE), student speaker at the College of Engineering’s 57th annual Commencement. “As the next generation of engineers, we get to lead the charge.” At once apprehensive and eager to assume that mantle, nine master of engineering, 149 master of science and 230 bachelor of science students were recognized on May 16 at the Track & Tennis Center for successfully completing the requirements for graduation. Forty-one doctor of philosophy graduates were honored at a separate ceremony the previous evening. “It’s exciting and exhilarating, but also frightening, to move on to the real world,” said Schuyler Eldridge (EE) as he and a river of fellow graduates in red gowns and black caps prepared to file into the arena to hear Commencement speeches and receive their diplomas onstage. Looking back on his four years, Jordan Cumper (Aero), now one of five Boston University alumni in his extended family, lauded his classmates for the strong support system they built as they advanced through the rigorous undergraduate program. “We really got to know each other, help each other and work hard together,” he said. Cumper’s mother Sandra later added, “Jordan has grown so much in these past four years, and I attribute it all to BU. I’m happy that he made this choice.”

Ioannis Miaoulis, president and director of the Museum of Science in Boston and former dean of Tufts University’s School of Engineering, delivered the Commencement address. Highlighting turning points in his career that inspired him to spearhead Massachusetts’ first-in-the-nation K-12 technology/engineering curriculum and establish the museum’s National Center for Technological Literacy, Miaoulis offered three pillars of advice to the graduates. First, he urged them to “find a life passion and stick with it; a path that continuously defines your goals can fill you with endless energy.” Second, he said, “Your life is a performance, not a rehearsal; live it, love it and enjoy it. Do not just continue preparing for it—it is happening now.” Finally, he urged every graduate to “become a true ambassador of your engineering profession.” At the PhD hooding ceremony on May 15 at the School of Management auditorium, featured speaker Zeynep Erim (PhD, BME ’92), a program officer in the Division of Interdisciplinary Training at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, encouraged graduates to assume challenges that reflect their outstanding qualifications, stay current on scientific and technological advances, be flexible in charting their career trajectories, stay true to their principles, and focus on the broad impact of their work on humanity.

Student speaker Daniel Ryan (EE)

Commencement speaker Ioannis Miaoulis

During his speech at the Commencement ceremony, Ryan cited water pollution, aging infrastructure and climate change as notable areas in which engineers can make a difference. “These are not trivial problems; they’re big, they’re tough, but that’s the point,” said Ryan. “We are engineers, and we solve the big problems. And from what I know of the creativity, the intelligence, and the spirit of the Boston University Engineering Class of 2010, we are ready for the challenges ahead.” —Mark Dwortzan

Networking for Success

Prepping for the Game

Panos Bethanis (GSM’98, LAW’98), fourth from left, oversees partner relations, sales and corporate strategy for DirectoryM. Bethanis spoke on “How to Maximize Your Impact on an Organization” at a Young Alumni Mentoring Program networking event on April 15.

Gregg Adkin (’86), EMC vice president of business development, and his family at the ENG Alumni Barbecue at Fenway Park on June 18.

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Remembering Professor Franco Cerrina Franco Cerrina, 62, died on July 12. Though his tenure as professor and chair of the Electrical & Computer Engineering Department was less than two years, Cerrina’s impact will be long-lasting. He will be remembered for his commitment to showing a new generation of students how exciting engineering can be. “I like the challenge of leading the ECE department in a time of rapid evolution and change, when disciplines are defined and often merge,” Cerrina said when he arrived on campus in 2008. “There has never been a better or more exciting time to be an electrical engineer.” At BU, Cerrina started the Nano-DNA lab in hopes of integrating biomolecules like DNA, RNA and proteins into existing nanotechnology. He worked with students like Anu Thubagere (ECE ’12), who said that her professor always encouraged outside collaborations and was extremely a pproachable. “Above all else, he was a tower of support for all of us in the lab,” Thubagere said. “He treated us as an extension of his family.” BU President Robert A. Brown said that Cerrina will be sorely missed. “Franco had already distinguished himself by his intellect, leadership and warmth to all who had the chance to know him,” said Brown. College of Engineering Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen added, “The College of Engineering community is deeply saddened by the passing of Professor Franco Cerrina. Although he was here for just under two years, he left his mark on the College as a department chairman, teacher, researcher, colleague and friend. He will be missed greatly.” Cerrina joined the department at a critical time as the College of Engineering was undergoing

Passings Kenneth A. Taylor (’58) Abington, Massachusetts Theodore P. Bourneuf (’66) Shallotte, North Carolina James Chatham (LEAP’10) Spokane, Washington

BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

major restructuring. He recruited four young faculty members to BU, helping rejuvenate the computer engineering program, and led the ECE department through a successful accreditation last year. Cerrina believed in an interdisciplinary education, and, while at BU, he worked to bridge the ties between engineering departments. Over the years, Cerrina received more than $45 million in grants, wrote more than 300 reviewed publications and was a fellow of the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. While at BU, he was elected a fellow of both SPIE and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Much of Cerrina’s work focused on semiconductor processing, in particular nano-scale lithography, which is essential to the development of the next generation of processors and memory chips. More recently, he was using a similar approach to fabricate DNA microarray chips and develop new techniques for synthesizing genetic material, a topic he addressed at BU. Before joining the BU faculty, he spent 24 years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he was director of the university’s Center for NanoTechnology. Cerrina had earned his PhD in physics at the University of Rome in 1974 and cofounded five companies. He was a leading scholar in optics, lithography and nanotechnology and held 16 patents, including one for the Maskless Array Synthesizer, a device used to track genetic activity in stem cells. Leslie Friday and Art Jahnke contributed to this story.

—Rachel Harrington

Professor Alexander (Sasha) Taubin (ECE) died in May. Taubin, who joined the department in January of 2002, was regarded as an excellent teacher and scholar in computer systems research. Previously, he held academic and professional positions in industry and universities in Japan, the U.S. and Russia. Taubin coauthored three books on asynchronous design, published more than 60 journal and conference papers and served on the technical committees of several international conferences in his field. He was a devoted teacher who focused on providing a solid education to both graduate and undergraduate students. His contributions and dedicated service to the ECE Department, College of Engineering and Boston University will be greatly missed.

How You Can Help Shape the Lives of Today’s Young Engineers: Donating to the Engineering Annual Fund is one of the best ways you can enhance the educational experiences of engineering undergraduates outside of the classroom:

Financial Assistance • The Supplemental Undergraduate Research Funds (SURF) and Summer Term Alumni Research Scholars (STARS) programs offer stipends and salary support to students working with faculty on research projects. • The Excellence in Engineering Book Awards help offset the cost of textbooks for deserving students.

“With help from the Engineering Annual Fund, the SURF program allowed me to do research on mesenchymal stem cell differentiation for use in tissue-engineered blood vessels. Not only did this opportunity give me a great experience that distinguishes me from other engineers in the job market, it also fostered my interest in cardiovascular applications of tissue engineering and gave me a potential career focus.” —Angie Xie (BME’12)

Student Clubs • The BU Society of Women Engineers, the Minority Engineers Society, the Students for the Advancement of Nanotechnology, the Society of Hispanic Engineers and other student groups send members to national conferences and professional networking events. •B U Rocket Club members develop and test nascent engine technology by planning, designing, constructing, flight-testing and launching a rocket. Innovative Programs • E ngineers Without Borders (BU chapter) is helping develop a water filtration system in the village of Chirimoto, Peru. • The BU Energy Club organized the BU Energy Forum 2010 to discuss the challenges of meeting energy demand, addressing climate concerns and exploring renewable energy sources. Funding for these and many other exciting opportunities comes directly from the generous support of alumni like you and helps shape future alumni into wellrounded engineers who ultimately have a lasting impact on society.

Visit www.bu.edu/eng/alumni to make your gift today and to join the ENG Alumni Facebook Group. www.facebook.com/BUCollegeofENG

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NONPROFIT U.S. POSTAGE PAID BOSTON MA PERMIT NO. 1839

Luca Dal Negro PhD (Physics), University of Trento, Italy Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering

In my group we design, fabricate and investigate novel nanostructures that are the optical analog of traditional fluids. These “nanoscale optical fluids” confine light waves by scattering them multiple times against a background of metallic or semiconductor nanoparticles—giving rise to unique optical effects such as enhancing the intensity of the light or channeling it to specific locations. We utilize these emerging properties to engineer more efficient silicon-based optical sensors, light sources, nonlinear optical elements and light-wave harvesting elements of particular interest for solar cells and energy conversion. To support my work and other photonics research at Boston University, the College of Engineering, the ECE Department and the Boston University Photonics Center devote significant resources— including state-of-the-art infrastructures, leadership and education— all among a dynamic community of dedicated students and faculty members. The quality of photonics research produced in this unique environment is highly recognized worldwide.

To learn more, visit www.bu.edu/eng.