Case Alumnus Fall 2021

Case Alumnus

The Magazine of the Case Alumni Association since 1921

Fall 2021

LOOK WHO’S BACK

Vaxxed, masked and hopeful, Case is ready for a fresh start.

HOMECOMING GUIDE

|

MEET OUR AWARD WINNERS

|

CASE PURSUES ‘HUMAN FUSION’

FRIDAY OCT. 22

HOMECOMING 2021 OCTOBER 21-24

Together again

The Case Alumni Association is excited to welcome alumni home for the first time in two years. With a combination of in person and virtual events, we make it easier than ever to reconnect with Case. Since health concerns could force changes in plans, be sure to check our Homecoming web page for the latest details on events and registration: www.casealumni.org/homecoming Register and attend two virtual CAA events and we will send you a Case baseball hat.

Case Engineering, Math and Science Alumni Only.

CWRU COVID-19 Protocols

Increasing COVID-19 cases within Northeast Ohio have prompted Case Western Reserve to resume its requirement that masks be worn indoors. In addition, only those who are fully vaccinated (two weeks past their final dose) should attend any in person campus event. Leaders continue to monitor pandemic developments and may need to adjust health protocols further as circumstances warrant.

Learn more at case.edu/covid19/.

Coffee and chat with the Dean in person and live streamed 10 a.m., Lobby of Tomlinson Hall 136th All Classes Reunion and Alumni Awards Ceremony in person and live streamed 5 to 8 p.m., Sears think[box]

SATURDAY OCT. 23 CIT Luncheon in person 11:30 a.m., Lobby of Tomlinson Hall Case Quad Open House and lab tours in person 1 to 3:30 p.m., starting in Nord Hall Kicher & Merat: 140 years of Case in person and live streamed 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., Nord Hall More than a Game in person and live streamed 3 to 4 p.m., Nord Hall Virtual Gaming Arcade Open all weekend

Dean’s Message

Let the next chapter begin “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

This quote feels especially poignant as we welcome students back to campus for the 2021-22 academic year.

An almost tangible sense of hope fills the air, and our community is reveling in the promise of a new chapter.

Reuniting as a community on campus is particularly meaningful after the challenges imposed by the pandemic. In addition to this long-anticipated reconnection, our students and faculty have another reason to be joyful — the opportunity to work and learn in two new, state-of-the-art spaces.

The new concrete lab in the Bingham Building, the only lab of its kind in the state, offers key resources for department faculty and students to perform advanced experimental testing and develop advanced materials for structural design and rehabilitation.

Undergraduate students will have dedicated space to explore materials science in the brand-new undergraduate teaching lab in the White Building, part of a larger renovation that also includes fresh space for students to study and gather between classes.

Reuniting as a community on campus is particularly meaningful after the challenges imposed by the pandemic.

I hope that many of you will be able to join us in reconnecting as a community during the 2021 Homecoming and Reunion Weekend, with virtual and in-person activities planned for Oct. 21-24. As part of those celebrations, Case Western Reserve University’s Kelvin Smith Library will commemorate the 140th anniversary of the establishment of Case School of Applied Science with an interactive digital history. Our history runs deep, with roots in the community and a legacy of innovation known across engineering — and we’ll continue to build upon this strong foundation for years to come.

Despite the challenges faced over the last 18 months, the Case School of Engineering has advanced engineering research and education thanks to the strength and determination of our community.

I can’t wait to see what this next chapter will bring. My sincerest thanks go to all of you who continue to support and champion the Case School of Engineering and Case Western Reserve University.

Best regards, Venkataramanan “Ragu” Balakrishnan Charles H. Phipps Dean, Case School of Engineering

Fall 2021

1

Like a brand new world

The Case Alumnus is published quarterly for members and friends of the Case Alumni Association, which serves the interests of more than 20,000 alumni of the Case School of Applied Science, Case Institute of Technology and the Case School of Engineering.

Established in 1885 by the first five graduates of the Case School of Applied Science, the Case Alumni Association is the oldest independent alumni association of engineering and applied science graduates in the nation.

It was a sight to behold that sunny day in late August, as I walked out the front doors of Nord Hall. Case Quad was aswarm with students.

I had almost forgotten what that looked like.

Eighteen months before, walking the same quad, I saw a handwritten note pinned to a bulletin board. “Be Safe Everybody,” it read.

There was not a soul in sight that cold March day. Dorms and offices had emptied for a pandemic that would rage longer than any of us imagined.

Now, young people filled the Quad from Crawford to Bingham.

They were wide-eyed first years thrown into Discover Week, and they clustered in orientation groups playing silly get-to-know-you games, sending peals of laughter across the bright green lawn.

Upper-class students joined them the next weekend, and Case looked much like its old self. Students sallying off to class, whizzing by on skateboards, eating lunch around the Michelson-Morley Fountain.

Yes, we’re still wearing masks. We all have vaccine cards on file and we had to be tested for Covid-19 thrice those first three weeks back.

Case is open, but the pandemic can still surprise.

Still, there’s a feeling of excitement and optimism in the air — a sense of a fresh start. It’s something maybe you can see and feel for yourself over Homecoming & Reunion Weekend Oct. 21-24.

You’ll find the mood is as bright as the fall colors washing over the Quad. As Cooper Reif, a fourth-year mechanical engineering major, tells us in this issue, there are plenty of smiles behind those masks. “People are just really excited to be back on campus.”

Long may it last.

The Case Alumnus is a publication of the Case Alumni Association, Inc., a 501(c)3 public charity under the IRS code.

CASE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION, INC. Tomlinson Hall, Room 109 10900 Euclid Avenue Cleveland, OH 44106-1712 216-231-4567 casealum@casealum.org casealumni.org

OFFICERS Joe Fakult ’90, President Brian Casselberry ’95, 1st Vice President Matt Crowley ’08, 2nd Vice President Curtis Grant ‘11, MEM ’12, 3rd Vice President Frank Merat ’72, MS ’75, PhD ’78, Treasurer Hillary Emer ‘07, MSE ’07, Assistant Treasurer Steve Simmons ‘79, MS ‘82, MBA ’86, Secretary

STAFF Stephen Zinram, Executive Director Thomas Conlon, Chief Financial Officer Emily Speer, Director of Gift Planning and Grants Compliance Robert L. Smith, Director of Communications Kelly Hendricks, Director of Alumni Relations Ryan Strine, Director of Annual Giving Janna Greer, Manager of Donor Relations and Grants Lillian Messner, Manager of Digital Content and Design Pamela Burtonshaw, Database Manager Melissa Slager, Manager, Executive Office

CASE ALUMNUS Robert L. Smith, Editor Lillian Messner, Art Director Steve Toth, Toth Creative Group, Layout and Design Duke Print & Mail Solutions

Robert L. Smith Editor Robert.Smith@casealum.org

2

casealumni.org

PHOTO CREDITS Wetzler’s Photography Roadell Hickman Photography Flaticon.com, Icons

THE MAGAZINE OF THE CASE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION SINCE 1921 To serve and advance the interests of the Case School of Engineering, the math and applied sciences of Case Western Reserve University and its alumni and students.

Fall 2021

11

12

New year, fresh start With hope and health protocols, CWRU welcomed students back to a live college experience.

Homecoming 2021 Together again The Case Alumni Association beckons alumni to reconnect Oct. 21-24 with events both live and live streamed.

14

Making us proud

Meet our 2021 Alumni Award winners.

12

11

Great read 16 At the cusp of human fusion Starting with a sense of touch,

20

Professor Dustin Tyler, PhD ’99, is bringing new sensations to people and to science.

Sibling brilliance The brothers who launched Path Robotics found their path to success at Sears think[box].

Alumni Adventures 26 Sail on sailor Alumna Sunniva Collins finds

beauty and engineering challenges on a great lake.

16

27

Rising stars Wow times four. Engineering faculty win prestigious National Science Foundation early-career awards.

DEPARTMENTS 1 2 4 7 10 22 24 28 34 35

36

Dean’s Message Editor’s column Letters, posts and emails Around the Quad Alumni Newsmakers Case Memories NewsBytes Class Notes In Memoriam Tribute — Glenn Brown, MS ’54, PhD ’56 Long We'll Remember

20 26

VISIT WWW.CASEALUMNI.ORG FOR THE LATEST NEWS AND EVENTS!

The best way to stay connected to the Case Alumni Association between magazine issues is to follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Please join our sites today for the latest news on alumni, students, faculty and innovative research and projects.

Cover photo by Lillian Messner Fall 2021

3

Letters, posts and emails Our profile of Arun Varshneya, the alumnus who developed chemically strengthened glass for devices like the EpiPen, drew several enthusiastic responses, including these: I enjoyed the recent coverage of Dr. Varshneya’s career. He had been also a colleague and friend at the Ford Research Laboratory. If there is a way for you to pass along my best wishes and congratulations on a marvelous career it would be appreciated.

Sincerely, Robert McCune CIT Physics ’69 robert.mccune@sbcglobal.net

Lovely example of CWRU culture — which values interdisciplinary curiosity & innovation. “They were like, ‘Hey, take

whatever courses you like. See where it takes you.’”

Kara Hazelgrave ’96 @karahazelgrave via Twitter

You can count mine as another life you saved through your work. Thank you for allowing this life-saving shot to work!

Joy Ward, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, CWRU @joywardKU Via Twitter

An alumnus thinks the “soft skills” taught by Joe Mayer, PhD, are essential for all Case students.

Kudos to Joe Mayer, PhD, who teaches “Leadership and Interpersonal Skills,” EPOM 400, as reported in the Spring 2021 issue of Case Alumnus. I have often thought that such a course would be especially beneficial to science and engineering students.

While there are some outstanding books for personal development and enhancing interpersonal skills (such as

4

casealumni.org

Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins and the classic How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie), bringing these concepts to the classroom at Case offers growth to busy students in an area largely overshadowed by the emphasis on developing technical skills and knowledge.

Although this is presently a graduate course, my hope is that consideration would be given to making a version of

this course a core requirement for all undergraduate students at Case. These are lifelong skills that will enrich Case students as they move beyond graduation on the journey of their professional and personal lives.

Eric R. Snyder ’72 Hudson, Ohio via the U.S. Mail ers6872@sbcglobal.net

Or by mail to:

SUBMIT YOUR LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Case Alumnus

Send by email to: Casealum@casealum.org

Tomlinson Hall, Room 109 10900 Euclid Avenue Cleveland OH 44106

The Case Alumni Association is a financial supporter of SOURCE, a university program that matches students with summer research projects.

We heard from a grateful scholar.

I just finished my first year as an undergraduate student at Case Western Reserve University. I'm majoring in mechanical engineering with a minor in artificial intelligence. I want to thank you for your generous support of my 2021 SOURCE STEM research scholar funding. It allowed me to conduct research under my mentor in person this summer and help successfully complete my first research project.

I conduct research as an undergraduate in Dr. Robert Gao's Electromechanical Systems Lab and work on a day-to-day

basis with his graduate students, Clayton Cooper and Jianjing Zhang. My research used physics-informed machine learning to predict the mechanical properties of parts printed using metal additive manufacturing. We used thermal imaging data to train our neural network.

This research was conducted in conjunction with faculty and students at Northwestern University. The new model we developed has the potential to ensure reliability in healthcare applications, automotive parts, or anything that utilizes this additive manufacturing process.

I came to Case for the research opportunities offered to undergraduate students.

My goal was to earn a master's in mechanical engineering or potentially machine learning. I'm now also considering a Ph.D. and this experience was an integral part of that decision. My technical knowledge has grown so much. Thank you for this opportunity.

Regards, Joshua Huang ’24 Kansas City, Kansas

Our stories on two standout alumni inspired a letter from a seasoned techi.

The articles about my former colleagues Don Schuele and fellow graduate Bruce Banks in Case Alumnus (Winter 2021 issue) inspired me to write this short note about probably the oldest alum still actively running a technical company — as well as a non-profit foundation dedicated to supporting experimental physics education.

I confess, I’m speaking of myself. I had two major connections to Case — one as an undergraduate physics and astronomy major (BS ’53) and as a faculty member from 1965 to 1970 in the Physics Department.

I will be celebrating my 90th birthday in August with a party at my company, TeachSpin, and I will be building our PS2 — D Pulsed/CW Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectrometer, designed specifically for teaching. I donated such an instrument to the Case Physics Department a few years ago.

I do enjoy reading about my school, but am sad to see so many of us leaving this planet.

Stay well, Jonathan Reichert ’53 Buffalo, NY via the U.S. Mail

The “Case Memories” section always stirs memories.

Timothy Brown ’00 (TimothyBrown@email.com) wrote to say that he recognized a classmate, May Liu ’98, at the far right of the top photo on page 24 of the Winter 2021 Alumnus.

Turns out the Case Engineers Council was a nice springboard. Liu went on to earn her doctorate at Stanford and today is a principal medical research scientist at Intuitive Surgical, a pioneer in robotic-assisted surgery.

Fall 2021

5

Around the Quad Circle of culture

Campus neighborhood named No. 1 arts district in the USA

It doesn’t take long for first-year students to notice the cultural riches all around them. Case students are shaped not only by their academic programs but

by University Circle, which some call the busiest square mile of arts and culture in the nation.

That title just became a little more official. In May, readers of USA Today voted University Circle the No. 1 arts district in the country. The campus neighborhood — which includes the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Maltz Performing Arts Center and Severance Hall, home of the Cleveland Orchestra — beat out arts districts in Minneapolis, Dallas, Baltimore and Miami to win the 2021 USA Today 10Best Readers’ Choice travel award contest.

“We’ve known for years – and now the rest of the nation will know as well – that some of the best art in the country can be found right here in our own backyard,” 6

casealumni.org

Chris Ronayne, president of University Circle Inc., said in a press release.

Added William Griswold, director and president of the Cleveland Museum of Art, “We very much look forward to welcoming visitors from our region and around

the globe to enjoy our exhibitions and renowned collection.”

More than 40 nonprofit and cultural organizations are located in University Circle, and many of them are cheap or free to students.

Around the Quad Patent power

CWRU is inventing and innovating at a world-class rate For the third consecutive year, Case Western Reserve ranked among the top 25 patent-producing universities in the world, indicating that campus research is translating into innovations and inventions.

A survey by the National Academy of Inventors and the Intellectual Property Owners Association found that the rate of inventing at CWRU in 2020 ranked the university 21st among the world’s 100 leading research universities. CWRU also ranked 21st in 2019, down slightly from 17th in 2018.

Its collection of patents, primarily connected to the Case School of Engineering and the CWRU School of Medicine, has risen every year since 2015.

“The increasing number of patents is phenomenal,” said Michael Hagg,

executive director of CWRU’s Office of Research and Technology Management.

He credits translational research programs, like the Case-Coulter Translational Research Partnership, which help research teams to include commercialization efforts in their projects. He added that the rising rate of invention coincides with more companies spinning out of campus.

Recent examples of impactful startups include Path Robotics, a robotic welding company founded by a pair of engineering students using technology they developed at Sears think[box]. (See related story in this issue on page 20).

The annual survey counts U.S. utility patents, the primary patent for inventions, awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. It found that

CWRU secured 105 utility patents in 2020. That’s more than double the number to spring from campus in 2016. The rate of patenting places CWRU ahead of the University of Chicago, Cornell, Duke, and Vanderbilt universities.

CWRU global patent rankings Year

Rank

Patents

2015

52

41

2016

46

52

2017

43

53

2018

17

95

2019

21

89

2020

21

105

Lordy, lordy look who’s 140

With the aid of alumni, KSL plans to commemorate Case history

The Case School of Engineering began as the Case School of Applied Science in 1880, launched by a visionary gift from the estate of Leonard Case Jr. But classes actually began in the Case home in downtown Cleveland the next year, September 1881. That makes this fall the 140th anniversary of the start of classes.

And that, says the Kelvin Smith Library, is something to commemorate.

The library formed a project team that has been pulling together pieces of Case history — in the form of archival documents, maps, stories and photographs — to populate a multimedia website that will tell the story of one of the nation's

oldest schools of engineering.

Daniela Solomon, KSL’s Research Services Librarian for Engineering and Chemistry and the project leader, said the website remains a work in progress but is good enough to launch. She hopes that Case alumni will go to https://scalar.case. edu/caseschool/index and begin to gain a deeper understanding of what they are a part of.

“I want the alumni to be able to discover,” she said.

A live presentation will soon animate the online resource. Solomon’s team includes two alumni with a deep knowledge of Case: former Dean Tom Kicher ’59, MS ’62, PhD ’65, and Emeritus Professor Frank Merat ’72, MS ’75, PhD ’78. They plan to share some of the project’s findings at a presentation during Homecoming weekend.

The Case legacy with Kicher & Merat: Highlights from 140 years of Case history begins at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 23, in Nord Hall and will also be live streamed. Learn more at www.casealumni.org/homecoming.

Fall 2021

7

Around the Quad Prize that matters

Cyrus Taylor, renowned as a dean, wins the Wittke award for teaching Former Dean Cyrus Taylor admits to feeling some trepidation when he walked into a classroom in the spring of 2020 and faced a roomful of students, having not taught a class in years. He need not have worried.

Those students helped him to receive the 2021 Carl F. Wittke Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, one of the highest honors Case Western Reserve bestows upon a teacher.

“This one is special,” said Taylor, the Albert A. Michelson Professor in Physics. “I can’t tell you how much it means to me after having served as dean for so long.”

Taylor arrived at CWRU in 1988 and was chair of the physics department from 2005 until he was appointed Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in 2006. When he stepped down in 2018, he was known as “dean of deans,” one of the most experienced administrators on campus.

Taylor’s return to the faculty ranks was no walk into the classroom. The

pandemic forced professors and students to adapt to remote learning only weeks into the spring semester. As reported in The Daily, the university’s online news source, Taylor impressed students with his knowledge of physics, his humbleness and his dedication.

“I most value his empathy,” one student nominator wrote. “Particularly in the midst of the pandemic, considering the intrinsic difficulty of this subject, he treated us more as colleagues than students.”

“If I ever become a professor,” another wrote, “I’m going to try my hardest to be like Professor Taylor.”

A changing serenade

Female voices herald a new day for the venerable Case Men’s Glee Club

There’s nothing in the bylaws that says members of the Case Men’s Glee Club must be men. That’s allowed an historic choir to add new voices and elevate a popular tenor to the presidency.

Christine Pan, a fourth-year computer science and music double major, is the first female president of the Case Men’s Glee Club in its 124 years. This fall, she assumed the leadership of the oldest active student group at Case Western Reserve University.

As she staffed the Glee Club’s table at the annual Student Activities Fair August 23, Pan took her pioneering status in 8

casealumni.org

stride. She’s aware of the club’s rich history, but she’s also eager to talk about its members and how much they love to sing.

“I sang tenor in high school” in Parsippany, New Jersey, she explained. “I thought this would be a really good group to join and it has been. I just fell in love with the glee club.”

Founded at the Case School of Applied Science in 1897, the Case Men’s Glee Club became one of a small number of collegiate glee clubs to tour domestically and abroad. Its tradition of barbershop-style

harmonies and popular music successfully spanned the generations. In 2018, the club became an academic ensemble within the Department of Music.

In fall 2019, Pan nervously approached an open rehearsal. Not knowing anyone, she took along a female friend. They need not have worried, she said. Both were warmly welcomed and enthralled.

“It was instantaneous,” she said. “That first rehearsal, I was like, ‘This is it. This is amazing.’”

She served as the club’s publicity manager and then as its business manager before members this year voted her president. There are several other women in the choir, including two more on the executive board — business manager Ruth Cavano and publicity manager Adaeze Izuegbunam — and likely more to come.

“The club has been trying to become more diverse,” said Gavin O’Keefe, the club’s treasurer. “We’re welcoming of anyone who loves to sing and who wants to be a member.”

The Case Men’s Glee Club is scheduled to perform its fall concert Nov. 5. Look for details at www.caseglee.com.

Alumni newsmakers

ALUMNI

newsmakers

New leader for new times

Joe Fakult ’90 assumes the presidency of an alumni association on the rise Joe Fakult’s long record of service to the Case Alumni Association hit its zenith July 1, when he assumed the presidency of the Board of Directors. Fakult ’90, a mechanical engineer and product line lead for Safran Electrical & Power, brings a wealth of experience to the task.

He’s a recognizable figure to the many young alumni who received scholarships from the Case Alumni Foundation. Fakult, who embarked upon a two-year term as president, chaired the scholarship committee for nearly a decade.

He succeeds Sunniva Collins, MS ’91, PhD ’95, who steps into the role of Immediate Past President.

Fakult said Collins and other officers left a strong organization that is emerging from the coronavirus pandemic with momentum. The endowment reached $86 million in August. Board members are active on key committees, Fakult observed, and generous donors continue to support the organization. The CAA, in turn, has increased its support of the school and its students.

“The Case Alumni Association seems to be in a very good place, with a skilled staff, and well-governed by a qualified board,” he said. “Coming in as president, it’s really a matter of preserving the best things that we do and continuing to improve.”

The Case Alumni Association was created in 1885 by the first five graduates of the Case School of Applied Science.

A new slate of officers also started twoyear terms June 30. They are: • 1st Vice President: Brian Casselberry ’95, Senior Lead Engineer, Swagelok • 2nd Vice President: Matt Crowley ’08, Chief Executive Officer, Signal Cortex • 3rd Vice President: Curtis Grant ’11, MEM ’12, Product Manager, Progressive Insurance • Treasurer: Frank Merat ’72, MS ’75, PhD ’78, Emeritus Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Case School of Engineering • Assistant Treasurer: Hillary Emer ’07, MSE ’07, Principal, Slalom Consulting • Secretary: Steve Simmons ’79, MS ’82, PhD ’86, Senior Manager of Solutions Engineering, the Stefanini Group

Academic trailblazer

Illinois State chooses a Case-trained scientist as its first woman president When she became president of Illinois State University in July, Terri Goss Kinzy, PhD ’91, embraced her status as a role model. The university’s 20th president, she is the first woman to hold the title.

“It's important for everyone to see that potential exists to go into leadership and to bring your voice and have it heard," Kinzy told WGLT-FM, the NPR station broadcasting from campus. “It's very exciting.”

Kinzy emerged from a field of more than 50 qualified candidates, university officials said. She brings a strong research background to a 20,000-student university that is hoping to raise its science profile and attract and retain more in-

state students. Previously, she was the vice president for research and innovation at Western Michigan University.

Since earning her doctorate in biochemistry at Case Institute of Technology, Kinzy has received international recogni-

tion for her work in understanding how mRNAs direct the way in which proteins are made. A professor of biological sciences, she has been published and cited in numerous academic and professional outlets. In 2017, she was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Kinzy told the radio station that she will let students guide her as she charts the future of Illinois State.

“I believe that students are a great pulse of where our university is, but also a pulse of where our country is and where our future is,” she said. “They are often thinking about other different things than we are because they are seeing the future of their lives and their careers.”

Fall 2021

9

ALUMNI

newsmakers

Alumni newsmakers

Rocket scientist, dragon dancer

Wayne Wong dives into space science and ethnic culture with equal zeal

As chief of the thermal energy conversion branch at the NASA Glenn Research Center, Wayne Wong ’89 helps design power systems that will allow the U.S. to explore deep space. As a leader in Cleveland’s Asian American community, he helps to animate and showcase Asian culture for everyone to explore.

Both roles fit the personality of the outgoing aerospace engineer who dives into science and culture with equal zeal.

Wong appeared in news reports in

May as the campus community celebrated Asian American Heritage Month. He’s a vice president of the Greater Cleveland chapter of the Organization of Chinese Americans — and the leader of its dragon dance team. He leads a noisy, mystical dance designed to bring good luck to all who see it.

“My ethnic identity is something that I cherish and am very proud of,” Wong told The Daily, CWRU’s online news source. “My involvement with these

organizations is ultimately because I’m invested in seeing the growth and continued vitality of this community.”

Wong immigrated with his family from Hong Kong as a boy and grew up in Cleveland’s AsiaTown. He earned his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering at Case Institute of Technology while active in the Asian American Alliance.

About a decade ago, Wong helped found the Cleveland Asian Festival, which showcases the art, foods and performance groups of the region’s Asian cultures. Typically, the festival includes a dragon dance — led by a Case engineer.

“I’m happy to support AsiaTown and Cleveland’s Asian community in any way I can,” Wong said. “These are all opportunities to reach out to the wider Greater Cleveland community to show that we’re part of America, but we come with a different background and a different point of view. Let’s enjoy this together.”

Now hiring, engineers

Led by a Case engineer, Nexus Engineering finds a winning formula One of Cleveland’s fastest growing engineering firms, Nexus Engineering Group, has gotten good at creating jobs while raising Ohio’s stature in the oil and gas industry. The 180-employee company, co-founded by Jeff Herzog ’79, MBA ’86, was awarded a $1 million Ohio Job Creation Tax Credit in June as the state recognized its potential.

Headquartered in Playhouse Square, Nexus plans to about double in size over the next five years and has committed to create 65 full-time jobs in Cleveland and Maumee, Ohio, where it recently opened an office.

10

casealumni.org

The firm offers engineering services to oil refining, petroleum midstream, chemical, energy and manufacturing industries.

It employs structural, civil, electrical, mechanical and process engineers, as well as professionals with instrumentation, design and construction management skills.

Herzog, the company president, started his career at the Standard Oil Co. as a project engineer. He launched Nexus in 2005 with a former SOHIO colleague, Marianna Corrao, who earned her chemical engineering degree at Cleveland State University.

The pair built an engineering dynamo.

Nexus reported 20 percent growth each of the past two years and was credited

by Crain’s Cleveland Business with helping to make Ohio a larger player in oil and gas refining.

Herzog, the former president of the Case Alumni Association, credits the company's success to its innovative approaches to engineering projects and an enthusiastic staff.

"We have a lot of really smart people and if you give them a mission, they're going to deliver,” he told Crain’s. “Every day we've got to figure out a way to get better or we'll be left behind."

So far, that has not been a problem.

Vaxxed, masked and hopeful With precautions, CWRU welcomed students back to a live college experience this fall.

T

he university required students to be vaccinated against Covid-19 this fall and nearly all complied. The spirit of cooperation extended to staff and faculty, 95 percent of whom reported taking the vaccine. With that, Case Western Reserve University started the school year with live classes, full dorms, busy dining halls and cautious optimism.

“I’m very confident that campus is safe, that it’s a safe place to be,” Sara Lee, MD, the executive director of University Health and Counseling Services, said in a Zoom presentation to staff and faculty.

Still, CWRU is continuing many of the health protocals enforced last year, including masking indoors and social distancing everywhere. In addition, the university mandated weekly Covid testing the first three weeks of school.

More precautions and restrictions could be coming, depending on what occurs on and off campus.

Like universities around the nation, CWRU struggled with how to maintain a safe environment in the face of a lingering pandemic and the emergence of the highly contagious Delta variant, which often targets younger people.

Over the summer, administrators employed games and cash prizes to

coax students to seek vaccinations. But by mid-July, only 73 percent had taken a shot.

“We got stuck,” new university President Eric Kaler, PhD, told National Public Radio. “It was clear that additional incentives were probably not going to be effective in moving us to the 95-plus percent level that we think is necessary.”

His administration decided to require vaccination, and Kaler says that mandate helped increase the vaccinated rate to 98 percent of students on campus.

The university is requiring staff and faculty, with few exceptions, to be vaccinated as a condition of employment.

That requirement extends to campus visitors, including alumni returning for Homecoming events in October.

For their part, students appear ready to bear inconveniences to preserve semi-normal college life. Last fall, only a portion of students were welcomed back to a lonelier experience. Dining was grab-and-go and gatherings were severely restricted or cancelled.

“People are just really excited to be back on campus,” said Cooper Reif, a fourth-year mechanical engineering major from Chicago and the speaker of the General Assembly of

Undergraduate Student Government.

“There’s much more excitement than any resentment toward the restrictions.

It’s just great to see other people, to be doing social things in person.”

CWRU welcomed about 1,650 first years and transfer student this fall, probably the largest class in university history, said Rick Bischoff, the vice president for enrollment management. The pandemic helped to shape a different freshman class.

International enrollment dropped sharply, by 25 percent, and less than 14 percent of first years hail from abroad. The university was aiming for 20 percent. As CWRU went “test optional,” the number of applications rose, as did standardized test scores.

Applicants tended to submit high SAT and ACT scores or none at all.

Kaler addressed the new students in the Veale Athletic Center August 16, shortly after they had said goodbye to their parents. He told them that he was, like each of them, new to CWRU. “You’re here to learn how to impact the world,” he said. “I am thrilled to be part of this university and I’m confident you will be, too.”

Fall 2021

11

Together again Homecoming & Reunion Weekend, Oct. 21-24 No matter where you are in the world, you can participate in our Homecoming celebrations this year.

The bright fall colors match the upbeat mood on Case Quad, which has come alive with in person classes, full dorms and fresh excitement. While Covid still lingers, vaccinations and health protocols have given students and visitors alike more freedom to roam — and to gather.

Homecoming & Reunion Weekend, Oct. 21-24, offers us all the chance to come together again. You’ll find exciting

new labs to tour, thought-provoking presentations to hear, and memories lurking on a campus dressed in its autumn best.

The Case School of Engineering kept busy during pandemic restrictions, finishing new science labs and completing renovations to the White Building, home of materials science. With so many new additions to the Quad, we’re staging an open house to let you in for a look.

Several Homecoming events will be

live streamed over the internet, including the Case Alumni Association’s annual awards program at the All Classes Reunion. So you can be a part of Homecoming even if logistics or health concerns prevent you from coming to campus.

Here’s a snapshot of our Homecoming highlights. You can find details on all the events, and register, at www.casealumni.org/homecoming.

Alumni Awards Program — In person and live streamed Our signature Homecoming event, the 136th All Classes Reunion, includes our annual awards program, where we honor several of our most distinguished alumni and supporters. The program begins at 6 p.m. Friday Oct. 22.

Coffee and chat with the Dean — In person and live streamed The Case School of Engineering is attracting a record number of applicants and outstanding students. Join Dean Balakrishnan as he shares the state of the school and responds to your questions at 10 am. Friday Oct. 22 in the lobby of Tomlinson Hall.

For event times and places, and for registration, go to www.casealumni.org/homecoming 12

casealumni.org

Case Quad Open House — In person Several exciting new labs will be open for Homecoming tours Saturday afternoon, Oct. 23, including the Roger E. Susi First Year Engineering Experience Lab, Ohio’s first university-based concrete lab, and the new materials science lab in the renovated White Building. Stop

by Nord Hall for refreshments and to pick up your map of the open labs and Quad activities.

140 years of Case — In person and live streamed Former Dean Tom Kicher ’59, MS ’62, PhD ’65, and Professor Emeritus Frank Merat ‘72, MS ’75, PhD ’78, have been working to document the legacy of the Case School of Applied Science, where classes commenced 140 years ago this year. They’ll share their favorite findings in this presentation that features memorabilia from Merat’s remarkable collection: 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. Saturday Oct. 23 in Nord Hall.

More than a game — In person and live streamed Three pioneering professors of game design will join game developer Ty Taylor ’11 to explain how Case uses gaming for meaningful fun.

You’ll hear from Taylor — the creator of Cozy Grove, Roundguard and Tumblestone — as well as from Case professors Marc Buchner and Michael Fu, MS ’06, PhD ’11, and Cleveland Institute of Art Professor Anthony Calabro: 3 to 4 p.m. Saturday Oct. 23 in Nord Hall.

Virtual gaming arcade — Online To complete the gaming experience, we invite you to play original video games developed by Case students in the Kevin Kranzusch Gaming, Simulation, and Visualization Lab. When the link goes live on Friday Oct. 22, you’ll have access to the Case Gaming Library curated by the CWRU ESports team.

Sears think[box] in action — In person Want to get to know the university’s acclaimed innovation center?

Student technicians will be giving tours of Sears think[box] from 1 to 3 p.m. Friday, Oct. 22, and offering one-hour, hands on activities — perfect for maker space beginners — from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday Oct. 23.

For event times and places, and for registration, go to www.casealumni.org/homecoming Fall 2021

13

Best of Case Celebrating our 2020-2021 award winners

Our annual awards represent the highest honors bestowed by the Case Alumni Association. Because of that, we like to celebrate our honorees in person, at a live ceremony. The pandemic made that impossible last year and the awards program was postponed — which is why we so looked forward to this fall.

At Homecoming and Reunion Weekend October 21-24, we plan to honor seven distinguished alumni and a champion of the Case School of Engineering. The awards program will take place during our signature homecoming event, the 136th annual All Classes Celebration, scheduled for 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 22.

The program will also be live streamed. So you can tune in whether you can be on campus or not.

Please consult our Homecoming 2021 website for the latest updates and for registration: casealumni.org/homecoming/ Here are our 2020-2021 award winners and a summary of why they are worthy of our thanks and admiration.

Samuel Givelber ’23 Award

Gold Medal Arun Varshneya, MS ’68, PhD ’70 One of the world’s foremost glass scientists and ceramics experts, Arun is renowned for developing chemically-strengthened glass for smart phones and medical devices. Most famously, he helped develop the glass cartridges essential to 14

casealumni.org

the operation of the lifesaving EpiPen. Arun’s company, Saxon Glass Technologies, is the exclusive provider of glass cartridges for the EpiPen, which delivers an anecdote to people suffering severe allergic reactions.

The professor emeritus at Alfred University is being honored by the Case Alumni Association for his scientific and professional achievements as well as for his support of today’s students. Arun is to receive the Gold Medal, our highest honor bestowed annually.

Ken Barker ’70 Ken, a retired financial analyst, takes full advantage of his snowy white beard. He spends much of the winter bringing joy to people as Santa Claus.

He’s also a steadfast supporter of Case students and of the Case Alumni Association, where he serves on the board of directors. Ken’s first involvement with the CAA was on the Investment Committee, where he shared his insight to help grow the endowment.

We can’t think of a more fitting person

for the Givelber award, which honors an alumnus who fosters fellowship and human kindness in the Case tradition.

Young Alumni Leadership Award Arkady Polinkovsky ’08, MS ’10 Arkady became active in the Case Alumni Association while an engineering student and never quit.

Despite a demanding job as the senior principal engineer at Altran, he continues to serve Case and its students as an active volunteer.

Recently, he assumed the chairmanship of the Scholarship Committee, which awards the annual Junior Senior Scholarships and many other scholarships that help outstanding students attain their Case degrees. He is being honored for giving so much to Case at a young age.

Immediate Past President Sunniva Collins, MS ’91, PhD ’94 Sunniva completed her term as president in June after leading the Case Alumni Association for two years, through a pandemic and into a new beginning.

She leaves an organization that has been able to increase its support of the school and its students, thank to generous donors and engaged alumni. We thank her for her service and look forward to her support and guidance in the future.

Meritorious Service Awards This year, five men will be recognized for their outstanding service to the alumni association and to Case with a Meritorious Service Award.

Jim McGuffin-Cawley, PhD ’84 Jim, a professor of materials science and the senior associate dean of the Case School of Engineering, is the ultimate utility player. He has been a member of the engineering faculty for 30 years and never stops taking on new leadership roles.

Last year, Jim was named Faculty Director of Sears think[box], the acclaimed innovation center that helps to draw top students to Case. Those students, he says, are the reason he devotes himself to the school so passionately.

Ed McHenry ’67, MBA ’71 Ed has served the Case Alumni Association in many roles as a 13-year member of the board, including a term as president from 2013-2015. He was instrumental in bringing the CAA back to campus in 2011, working with former CWRU President Barbara Snyder to heal the breach and give Case alumni a new home in Tomlinson Hall. With his grandson pursuing an engineering degree at Case, Ed’s ties are as strong as ever.

Jim has long been one of the CAA’s most active and creative volunteers, lending his energy and passion for Case to events large and small. That’s in addition to serving 13 years on the Board of Directors.

Steve Hasbrouck ’62 Steve, an active alumnus for more than 50 years and a member of the investment committee, helped to shape an endowment that will assure the future of the CAA for years to come.

That’s important to Steve. After launching and leading a successful investment firm, he counts his engineering degree from Case Institute of Technology as one of his proudest achievements.

Daniel Ducoff As a development officer, Daniel invites people to join projects that will impact science, the community and humanity.

He’s done that for the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and, most passionately, for the Case School of Engineering. CWRU calls him its vice president for strategic initiatives and global principal gifts. We call him a friend who enriches us all.

Jim Kilmer ’00, MSE ’00 You may see him greeting alumni on Case Row at CES, moderating a game show during Engineers Week, or donning a lion costume to greet students at Freshman Welcome.

Information on Homecoming events, including the 136th All Classes Celebration can be found at www.casealumni.org/homecoming Fall 2021

15

Graduate student researcher Leah Marie Roldan preps Keith Vonderhuevel for a test of the sensory powers of his advanced prosthetic. It was developed by researchers at the Human Fusions Institute.

Uniting man

Photos by Roadell Hickman

and machine

Starting with a precious sense of touch, Dustin Tyler’s Human Fusions Institute is bringing new sensations to people and science.

By Zachary Lewis

T

echnology, to Dustin Tyler, PhD ’99, is more than a tool. It’s an extension of humanity. In his mind, man and machine belong together.

That’s a view shared by his peers in the Human Fusions Institute, a multidisciplinary, advanced engineering institute formally launched this year at Case Western Reserve University. They’re working to wisely and safely usher in that vision of a connected future.

At the HFi, as it’s called, the big-picture mission is to foster 16

casealumni.org

a “thriving, just, connected society.” Their more immediate goal is to mechanize the sense of touch, to apply the most human of powers to the realm of robotics.

“The more I think about it, the more massive I realize this is,” said Tyler, the director and founder of the HFi and the Kent H. Smith II Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Case School of Engineering. “This is a paradigm shift. We can be the tool.

Once you get there, the possibilities are enormous.”

The shift is already well underway. Vast as the potential for haptic technology is in gaming, healthcare, and the military, the HFi — under development by Tyler since 2017 — has progressed farthest in developing advanced prosthetics, realistic artificial hands that give wearers the ability to feel what they’re holding.

Using tiny patented “nerve cuffs” that gently wrap around and establish electrode contact with nerves, Tyler and colleagues have added sensors to prosthetics that help people missing limbs feel whole again, enabling them to touch their loved ones and perform basic tasks naturally. Others in the HFi, meanwhile, are working to support the effort financially, test it in the real world, imagine other applications and ponder ethical questions.

Keith Vonderhuevel, 54, has been involved with the institute since the beginning. The Sidney, Ohio, resident and U.S. Air Force veteran lost a hand in an industrial accident in 2004. His prosthetist introduced him to the work underway in University Circle.

Vonderhuevel now has three of Tyler’s nerve cuffs in his arm, and these, connected to sensors on the prosthetic, endow him with a sense of touch. The hand itself is operated physically, by means of external sensors that respond to muscular commands.

What he’s able to do today is more than he ever imagined, and his most powerful memory is that of picking up his granddaughter with all the delicacy and nuance the task requires.

“It was just incredible,” Vonderhuevel said. “I was able to feel how hard I was grabbing her. It was the first time I felt like I wasn’t squeezing too hard.”

The life-changing potential of this technology can hardly be overstated. Entrepreneurship expert Fehmida Kapadia, director of innovation and ecosystem at the HFi, notes that the sense of touch is “primal to our existence. Being deprived of this takes a massive toll, and as the world becomes more remote, we are losing this essential thing that connects us as human beings.”

Stunning as it is, the technology is advancing rapidly. Soon, Vonderhuevel and others with HFi prosthetics won’t have cables protruding from their arms or any concerns associated with open skin. Instead, all communication between nerves and prosthetic will occur wirelessly, through an implantable device akin to a pacemaker.

Without the visual clutter of wires, Tyler suspects brains will more readily accept prosthetics as natural hands and fill in more of whatever sensory data may be missing.

“This is what the brain does,” Tyler explained. “It’s an associator. We don’t have to be perfect. We just have to be on the right channels. We need to develop a signal the brain hasn’t had before.”

Keith Vonderhuevel demonstrates the use of an advanced prosthetic that endows him with the sense of touch.

Leaping beyond prosthetics Advanced prosthetics may be the most heartwarming use of what Tyler calls “neuro reality,” but they’re far from the only application. One day soon, Tyler believes, it will be common to don devices that tap the neural network and provide sensory feedback as one plays games, performs dangerous tasks, or even examines infectious patients, all from a distance.

In that not-too-distant future, bombs will be neutralized remotely, people will explore immersive environments, and robots can be controlled with enough sensitivity to complete medical procedures.

Physician and HFi member Jonathan Baskin, MD, is especially excited about that. He expects to see this technology revolutionize surgery.

A specialist in sleep apnea and an associate professor in the CWRU School of Medicine and the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Baskin already employs robots in some operations. But those machines are limited, he said. If they provided tactile feedback and let him distinguish bone from soft tissue, “that would be very useful,” he said. “That would take it to the next level.”

“This is what the brain does. It’s an associator. We don’t have to be perfect. We just have to be on the right channels. We need to develop a signal the brain hasn’t had before.”

Getting to that level doesn’t require a huge leap. Once the HFi becomes fluent in the signals the body uses to communicate, signals can be coded to operate almost any device. Touch will be a universal digital language.

“What we’re trying to do is understand how the body takes in information and at what point it can’t tell the difference,” said Melissa Schmitt, a clinical research nurse at CWRU and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs who regularly sees HFi subjects. “We’re trying to understand more of that language, to be as natural as possible.”

Some of that language is already well understood. In August 2020, using tools and software he helped develop, Luis Mesias ’20, an electrical engineer and a doctoral student at Case, stood in Cleveland and linked to a robotic arm in California. He gently picked up what he later learned was a banana 3,000 miles away.

Fall 2021

17

Sensors in a glove fed him tactile data about the size, shape, and firmness of the unknown distant object and allowed him to control the robotic hand to pick it up without crushing it.

The next step, said Michael Fu, MS ’06, PhD ’11, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, is to add touch to all five fingers and other parts of the hand.

Mesias also wrote a game in which the player, wearing a virtual-reality headset and sensor-equipped glove, attempts to tap but not pop bubbles. Without touch, the game is difficult.

Once the player can feel the bubbles, however, it’s relatively easy.

That sense of touch is becoming a more lucrative pursuit.

In April, the Human Fusions Institute was named one of 38 semifinalists in a $10 million global competition called the Avatar Xprize. Sponsored by the Xprize Foundation, the contest challenges researchers to develop “an avatar system that will transport humans’ sense, actions and presence to a remote location in real time.”

Tyler believes the banana demonstration, among others, puts HFi and its technology in a strong position for a prize that will be awarded in 2022.

The institute is supported in part by grants and a portion of a $20 million fund for biomedical engineering advances that late alumnus Robert Aiken ’52 and his wife, Brenda, committed in 2017. Meanwhile, Tyler increasingly collaborates with experts in related fields.

Sensory tools. Two models of touch-enabled robotic hands rest in a lab affiliated with the Human Fusions Institute. More advanced equipment is in development.

18

casealumni.org

The hand out West, for instance, was built by Veronica Santos, director of the Biomechatronics Laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles. She said she and Tyler have moved in the same spheres for a long time but their work only merged at this point of translating sensation into signal and giving robots the sense of touch.

“To see it come together when we wanted was really exciting,” Santos said. “I think our expertise is quite complementary.”

How to create “amazing” The collaboration between CWRU and UCLA — just one of several partner universities affiliated with HFi — raises two other issues vital to the “thriving” and “just” future HFi imagines: privacy and network efficiency.

“We’re looking to bring the entire university into this. If you pull in other people from the start, you’re creating something amazing.”

Remotely operating haptic technology — also known as 3D touch — depends on the safe, rapid transmission of vast amounts of personal data over long distances. The HFi, therefore, includes technicians establishing robust, high-speed networks and academics pondering the legal, ethical, and social ramifications of the work.

“We’re looking to bring the entire university into this,” Tyler said. “We’re not just throwing tech out there and letting someone else deal with it. If you pull in other people from the start, you’re creating something amazing.”

Others on campus are also striving to crack the body’s electric code and transform lives. Abidemi “Bolu” Ajiboye, PhD, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at the Case School of Engineering, has long been working parallel to Tyler, deciphering neural signals. His work does not involve robots. Rather, his aim is to re-animate existing limbs disconnected from the brain by spinal cord or other injuries. He creates devices that re-route signals around the problem.

Ajiboye has had success restoring function where it appeared to be lost forever. His work also has received significant attention from other researchers and was showcased in the 2020 documentary, “I Am Human.”

Between his research and Tyler’s, Ajiboye said, there are “natural synergies, and we’re exploring those in real time. We’re right at that inflection point where things could start moving really quickly.”

Dustin Tyler chats with Brandon Prestwood at the Cleveland FES Center.

Venkataramanan “Ragu” Balakrishnan, dean of the Case School of Engineering, sees a Case and Cleveland expertise converging.

“The Human Fusions Institute exemplifies the ideal for research and innovation in the Case School of Engineering,” he said “Their work draws on the university’s foundational excellence in biomedical engineering and leverages our unique partnerships in the Cleveland medical ecosystem.”

From that core strength, the researchers have moved beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries to explore new possibilities, he said.

Through that exploration, lives are being changed.

Brandon Prestwood lost his left hand nine years ago when his arm got ensnared in a conveyor belt in an industrial laundry.

The mangled limb was amputated just below the elbow.

On a July afternoon, he was the center of attention at the Cleveland Functional Electrical Stimulation Center in the basement of the Cleveland VA Medical Center, where Tyler has a lab. In 2017, members of Tyler’s team implanted nerve cuffs in the residual muscles, allowing the 46 year old to feel sensation in an artificial arm. Prestwood had come up from Hickory, North Carolina, for further testing and diagnosis.

“Obviously, the sensation is incredible,” he said slowly, almost overcome with emotion. “I got to hold my wife’s hand and give her a real hug for the first time (since the accident).

But it makes me complete. It makes me feel whole again.

Photo by Robert L. Smith

This program makes me useful to society again.”

The HFi appears ready to do more. Its prosthetics are the best possible proof of concept, and it’s gaining new partners and supporters every day. Meanwhile, efforts to establish safe networks and translate the electrical signals of the body into a universally accessible code are proceeding apace. Once those are available, new uses for remote and virtual touch technology are almost certain to blossom.

The HFi still needs to secure more funding, obtain federal approval for new equipment, and gather members scattered around campus into a physical headquarters with offices, labs, and multipurpose space. Tyler remains unsure where their campus address will be. He also aspires to develop coursework and one day offer a degree specialization or certificate program.

With others around the globe exploring related areas of human-tech interaction, there’s a certain sense of urgency.

Besides that, humanity can’t wait, team members believe. Many of the challenges people like Keith Vonderhuevel face are ones the HFi is uniquely suited to solve.

“We need to move faster,” Kapadia said. “At the end of the day, that’s why most of us are doing what we’re doing: to change the world in some way.”

Zachary Lewis is a former award-winning reporter for The Plain Dealer and a Cleveland freelance writer. To comment on this story and to ask questions, please email casealum@casealum.org.

Fall 2021

19

SIBLING BRILLIANCE

The Case students who founded Path Robotics thought they could transform American manufacturing. They might be right.

Alex and Andrew Lonsberry in June 2021 in Path Robotics' warehouse in Columbus.

By Robert L. Smith

N

ot long ago, Alex and Andrew Lonsberry were practically living in the basement of Sears think[box], where their dream was born. Both graduate students in the Case School of Engineering, they sometimes spent 12 to 16 hours a day, tinkering with robots and teaching them to weld.

They thought they had an idea that could transform American manufacturing.

Deep-pocketed investors think they might be right.

In July, Path Robotics announced raising $100 million in its second major funding round, bringing the total invested in the young company to $171 million in less than three years. That makes Path Robotics one of the most successful student startups ever to launch from Case Western Reserve.

“It’s been an amazing ride,” said Alex Lonsberry ’09, MS ’12, the company’s Chief Technology Officer and still a doctoral student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He expects the thrills to continue.

“We’re an AI robotics company that will go way beyond welding. The final goal is to be that trillion dollar company that will take over manufacturing,” he said, laughing.

For he and his younger brother Andrew

20

casealumni.org

Lonsberry, MS ’21, there’s plenty to smile about. The siblings are putting their Case degrees to grand work.

As they applied robotics to mechanical systems, the brothers focused on welding because the craft faces a labor shortage.

They also employed artificial intelligence to design robots that get better with use.

“Most robots merely repeat what they are told and have no ability to improve themselves,” Andrew Lonsberry, the company CEO, said in a statement. “Our goal is to change this. The future of manufacturing hinges on highly capable robots.”

Path’s robotic welding system uses image processing techniques to find and weld seams in metal parts. Largely a software company, Path adds sensors, lasers and AI capabilities to existing robots. The company launched its production models last summer: a large, boom-mounted robotic welder and an enclosed welding system for smaller parts.

“What they’re doing is well researched and brilliantly developed,” said Bob Sopko, director of the campus startup consultancy, CWRU LaunchNet. “It shows what we can do in Northeast Ohio — combining sophisticated software and manufacturing.

It’s something which differentiates us from

many locations, including Silicon Valley.”

Path welder

Family friendly startup The Lonsberry brothers began with a Silicon Valley mindset.

Alex Lonsberry, 35, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering at Case. It’s where he met his wife, Rachel Sherman, a graduate of the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing.

Alex finished his master’s program in 2012. Soon after, Andrew, an Ohio Statetrained engineer, joined him at Case so they both could pursue doctorate degrees.

Andrew Lonsberry, 30, accepted his master’s in mechanical engineering in May. While they studied engineering, the brothers also sought out a business idea.

“My brother and I are so entrepreneurial, we can’t help ourselves,” Alex Lonsberry explained.

They grew up in the Cleveland suburb of Hudson, steeped in the family’s custom motorcycle business. It was run by dad, Ken Lonsberry, a manufacturing engineer. In 2016, they started an engineering consulting firm to search for a business niche — a problem to solve.

That quest led them to CORSA Performance, a Cleveland-area maker of exhaust systems for boats and muscle cars. The Berea company was struggling to fill critical welding positions. That’s how the brothers learned of the shortage of welders afflicting manufacturers nationwide. They had their problem. Was a smart robot the solution?

Path’s proprietary technology was informed by Alex’s master’s research into machine vision — using imaging technology to guide mechanical systems. Mentors included Professor Roger Quinn, director of Case’s Biologically Inspired Robotics Lab. He saw a trait common among his student who excel as entrepreneurs.

“

They have the ‘It factor,’” said Quinn.

“Whatever it is that attracts other people to a cause, they have it.

”

“They have the ‘It factor,’” said Quinn.

“Whatever it is that attracts other people to a cause, they have it.”

And they were helped mightily by the campus innovation center, which provided the machine tools and work space to experiment and prototype.

“Without think[box], we wouldn’t exist, period,” Alex Lonsberry said.

They became fixtures at the muffler shop and at Sears think[box], where they worked in a space next door to Sopko’s office.

“They were very quiet,” Sopko said.

“They would come in and shut the door and work all day and work all day and work all day.”

In July of 2018, with a push from Sopko, the brothers entered a pitch contest sponsored by MAGNET — the Manufacturing Advocacy and Growth Network — and won rent-free space at MAGNET’s offices near Cleveland State University.

MAGNET also gave them industry connections and insight from real welders.

A Path Robotics welding robot for a factory.

Also in 2018, Sopko coaxed them to enter the LaunchTown Entrepreneurship Awards in Akron, which drew student startup teams from around Northeast Ohio. They won first place and a $7,500 cash award.

By January 1, 2019, Path Robotics was up and running.

Cleveland loses a hot company Now it was time to find serious venture capital, which they were not getting in Cleveland. The brothers flew to Silicon Valley to visit VC firms, bringing a prototype of a robotic welder. Alex Lonsberry said a former lab partner connected him with Lemnos Labs, a VC firm that specializes in robotics. The first person he met offered a $2.5 million investment.

The West Coast investors wanted the company to relocate to California, but the brothers demurred. They argued the company was better off in Cleveland, a hub of advanced manufacturing.

NASDAQ offered congratulations to Path Robotics on its electronic billboard in Times Square.

Soon after, they heard unexpectedly from Drive Capital, a Columbus venture capital firm co-founded by former JobsOhio president Mark Kvamme and

fueled by a massive investment from the state of Ohio. Drive offered to invest $12.5 million but insisted the company move to Columbus.

“It was part of the deal,” Alex Lonsberry said. “They said, ‘We want you nearby so we can check on you on a weekly basis.’”

And so a job-creating company launched from Cleveland’s elite research university, and nurtured by the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, is growing in another city.

The latest burst of capital, in what’s called a Series C funding round, followed a $56 million infusion less than three months before. Major investors included Lee Fixer, founder of New York City venture capital firm Addition, who said he sees a company that will “lead American manufacturing into the future.”

Meanwhile, Path is on a hiring tear.

Having started 2020 with 20 employees, the workforce exceeded 100 in May and the brothers expect to be overseeing more than 200 employees by the end of the year.

The company employs dozens of engineers, many of them Case alumni. Matt Klein ’12, MS ’17, who is also pursuing a doctorate in engineering at Case, is a co-founder and the head of robotics. Dad, Ken Lonsberry, who has been helping his boys since the beginning, is the Chief Supply Chain officer.

Alex Lonsberry said he and his brother believe they have a technology that will enhance productivity in all kinds of manufacturing. He talks as if the sky is the limit. And why not?

“We’ve done a lot of really hard, challenging things — on a shoestring budget,” he said. “We have a ton of great technology.

So, yeah, I’m really confident.”

Fall 2021

21

Case Memories Here is a selection of photos from Homecomings past. If you see someone you know or recall a memory, please share the news: casealum@casealum.org

Class of 1967

band. strikes up the 27 19 f o ss la C The

Serenading the Class of '43 in 1973.

King and his court, 1989

22

casealumni.org

Credit: Photos curated by Melissa Slager of the Case Alumni Association.

Parading in 2016

Fraternity flo at, 1995

, 2017 Ready to launch

Old friends reunite, 2014

Fall 2021

23

NewsBytes Professor President When he started his new job as president of Case Western Reserve University July 1, Eric Kaler, PhD, assumed another role to his liking — tenured professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering. The university president is not expected to teach classes anytime soon, but if and when he does, he brings impressive credentials to the task. Kaler, a chemical engineer, is an inventor on 10 patents and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Metro’s genie in a bottle Julie Jacono ’94, MBA ’98, was named one of the 2021 Notables in Health Care by Crain’s Cleveland Business, thanks to a strong nomination from her boss, Dr. Akram Boutros, CEO of the MetroHealth System. He described his Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer as “our genie in a bottle,” a biomedical engineer who finds creative approaches to complex issues.

She may need all of her magic for her next challenge. Jacono is leading MetroHealth’s collaboration with CWRU, Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals and Cleveland State to create the $566 million Cleveland Innovation District near campus.

Our kind of sports star Junior Anika Washburn was named a First Team Academic All-American for excelling at soccer for the Lady Spartans while achieving a 3.96 grade point average as a computer science major. Helping to put the spring in her kick was a Junior-Senior Scholarship from the Case Alumni Foundation.

Tech’s referee Joshua Martin III ’66 has been named by the Silicon Valley Arbitration & Mediation Center to its 2021 List of the World’s Leading Technology Neutrals, aka the “Tech List.” He’s one of 53 people in key markets around the world deemed an expert at resolving technology-related business disputes.

A lawyer, and the former president and CEO of Verizon Delaware, Martin began his wide-ranging career with a physics degree from Case Institute of Technology.

24

casealumni.org

Goodbye old friend After more than a decade raising funds and winning friends for the Case School of Engineering, Anne Cunningham has departed for DePauw University, where she’s the new vice president of development and alumni engagement. Anne joined the Case Alumni Association as director of the annual fund in 2008 and moved to the CWRU side in 2016. She said she’ll most miss working with the hundreds of prideful Case alumni she met over the years.

Super thinkboxer

Better than a three pointer After being named to the NABC Honors Court as a scholar athlete for the second straight year, Spartan basketball standout Ignas Masiulionis ’21 is off to the University of Chicago, where he’s pursuing a doctorate in quantum engineering. The sharp-shooting astronomy-physics major — who ranks 10th in program history for three-point shots — says he wants to use quantum technologies to improve the thresholds of computing power.

Jason Bradshaw ’02, director of design and manufacturing at Sears think[box], tends to think outside the box. When remote learning created a whiteboard problem in classrooms — text and images appear reversed on camera — he devised a solution used by several CWRU faculty.

Bradshaw raised a clear acrylic light board that instructors could write on while facing the camera, correcting the mirror imaging issue.

For that and other marvels, the mechanical engineer in June was awarded the President’s Award for Distinguished Service.

A teacher’s legacy Alumni around the country have been sharing memories of Gerald Saidel, PhD, one of the founding faculty members of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, who retired in June after 54 years at Case.

One of those former students, Ken Lutchen, PhD ‘83, Dean of the College of Engineering at Boston University, had this to say about his favorite professor: “Jerry, more than anyone else by far, taught me technical and scientific writing and communication. No matter how busy, Jerry would rigorously pour his red pencil into making sure the next version was better.”

Fall 2021

25

Alumni Adventures

Discovering sailing Alumna finds calm, beauty and engineering challenges on a great lake

By John Canale

S

unsets on Lake Erie light the horizon with breathtaking colors.

The panorama can lull the casual observer into dream-like serenity. But ask any nautical adventurer, and they’ll explain that the vast blue lake possesses a fierce and challenging personality, revealing itself to all who sail upon it.

That insight is now known to Sunniva Collins, MS ’91, PhD ’94, the immediate past president of the Case Alumni Association. She took up sailing a few years ago and discovered that helming a boat is much like tackling an engineering problem, one that can be approached using science and engineering principles.

“What has been interesting to me is to realize that there's this very large community of sailors at Case, and it often has to do with the fact that they like to have something to work on that's mechanical,” said Collins, an associate dean at the Case School of Engineering and an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. “There’s an engine involved.

You have to know something about fluid dynamics, because you're looking at what happens when the wind changes.

It's playing around with a machine to make it move under the force of the wind.

And that's been really kind of fun.”

26

casealumni.org

Photos by Robert L. Smith Five years ago, Collins and her husband, Michael, made the decision to buy a sailboat after sailing with friends and colleagues for many years.

The Ovation, docked at a marina near downtown Cleveland, is a 1984 29-foot J-class yacht — a racing boat with a reputation for speed. Collins modestly observes that she and her crew (her husband, their son William, and daughter Kristina) only race around the buoys near shore for fun. But during the pandemic year, they all became better sailors as they learned to work together tacking, steering and raising and lowering sails.

“We worked really hard at trying to be better at sailing, and because we were in a little pod with my family, the four of us got to a point where we can actually sail the boat pretty well all together,” she said.

The Cleveland Heights native has a long relationship with Lake Erie. Her father had been a captain in the Norwegian merchant marine and moved to Northeast Ohio after marrying her mother. He became the superintendent of the Port of Cleveland. Collins said she always knew she would one day get her own boat.

Now she shares her passion with friends, colleagues and students.

“Some of the students we’ve taken

Sunniva on the deck of Ovation

with us have had sailing experiences in places like New England,” Collins said.

“The weather patterns and the wave patterns on the lake are really different than they are on the ocean. That's often something that they remark on. You get to a point where you start to really pay attention to the weather, because it changes so quickly here.”

Collins and her crew continue to refine their nautical skills, motivated by the challenges of navigating Lake Erie.

But having fun sailing on a great lake is the ultimate goal.

“I am still really working on things like piloting. And part of it was to get that feel for what the boat ought to be doing,” Collins said. “I like an evening sail or an afternoon sail for a couple of hours. It's just nice to get out there.”

Especially to see the beautiful sunsets.

John Canale is a freelance writer in Greater Cleveland.

Have an alumni adventure to share? Email casealum@casealum.org

Rising stars

Four Case researchers win prestigious National Science Foundation awards that target promising young scientists.

N

ational Science Foundation CAREER awards are harbingers of great things to come. Among the most prestigious honors for junior faculty, the grants are aimed at supporting promising young teacher-researchers and accelerating their impact.

This year, four Case Western Reserve scientists were selected for the award — all from the Case School of Engineering.

“We are honored to have a deep bench of earlycareer researchers gaining recognition on a national level,” said Venkataramanan “Ragu” Balakrishnan, the Charles H. Phipps Dean of the Case School of Engineering.

“I am thrilled to celebrate the achievements of our faculty, and am looking forward to seeing what the future holds for this outstanding group.”

Here are the ones to watch: Kathryn “Kati” Daltorio ’05, MS ’07, PhD ’13, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, received a five-year, $600,000 award to pursue her groundbreaking work in soft robotics. She hopes to bridge a gap between the design and function of live creatures and biologically inspired robots — her specialty.

With the NSF funding, Daltorio said she and students in her lab will continue their work on earthworm-like machines. They hope to better understand how a robot might worm its way through a tight space like, say, a pile of rubble, to help find people.

Daltorio came to Case in 2001 and earned three degrees, including her doctorate, before joining the faulty in 2017 and launching her research lab.

Dean Balakrishnan described her as “a rising star among our faculty, earning accolades and national-level recognition along the way. We could not be more proud to have this exceptional alumna as a member of our research community.”

Burcu Gurkan, the Nord Distinguished Associate Professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering, received a five-year, $550,000 grant to continue her research into capturing and converting carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that incites global warming.

Gurkan said this NSF award will

support her research into converting certain gases into different types of fuels using “out-of-the-box” approaches.

It’s in addition to Gurkan’s ongoing research to capture CO2 more efficiently in spaceships — a project funded by an Early Career Faculty grant from NASA. Balakrishnan described Gurkan’s work as “incredibly highly cited,” adding that she “exemplifies the best of our early-career researchers in her novel and innovative approach to society’s biggest challenges.”

Xusheng Xiao, an assistant professor of computer and data sciences, received a five-year, $500,000 award to support his research at the intersection of software engineering and computer data security.

Xiao concentrates on making software and computer systems more “Reliable, Intelligent, Secure and Efficient,” or RISE, the name of his Case lab.

He and his lab members, who have attained six U.S. patents, are researching and developing automated analysis techniques for the security of mobile apps and enterprise systems. Most recently, Xiao and his team have been examining how computer and mobile-device apps could use sensitive personal data to detect abnormal behaviors from hackers.

This new NSF-funded work is in addition to his ongoing collaboration with Yinghui Wu, also an assistant professor of computer and data sciences at the Case School of Engineering. The pair recently received a three-year, $500,000 NSF grant pursue their idea for a better defense system against data breaches in large enterprises and organizations.

Julie Renner, an assistant professor of chemical engineering, won a five-year, $523,00 grant to support her research into biomaterials.

Renner has been investigating and developing a new generation of materials with applications in implantable devices, sensors, water treatment, and renewable energy.

More specifically, she and her students in the Renner Research Lab are investigating fundamental properties and potential new uses for the highly-elastic protein elastin.

She called the NSF award an “academic dream come true, and a chance to really make a difference in our field.”

Fall 2021

27

Class Notes 1950s Wilbur F. Dobson ’53 Fort Worth, Texas Wilbur was elected to the Buckeye Local Schools Hall of Fame (Medina County, Ohio) for his achievements in aerospace. He wrote the software to enable preflight settings for the Scout four-stage solid rocket with a single computer pass, replacing methods that required nearly a month to perform. In addition, he was chosen to help Neil Armstrong develop and implement a backup for radar altitude during his Moon landing in 1969.

Jonathan Reichert ’53 Buffalo, New York John is the president of TeachSpin, which designs and builds equipment for teaching physics.

He celebrated his 90th birthday in August with a party at the company’s offices in Buffalo. John was a member of the Physics Department at Case from 1965 to 1970. Through the J.F. Reichert Foundation, he supports experimental physics education.

Robert M. Archer ’57 Ashland, Ohio Bob and his wife Jan made a $10 million gift to Ashland University to support scholarships and capital projects. In gratitude, the university intends to name the campus library after the couple. Bob earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering from Case Institute of Technology and worked for the Hoover Co. in Stark County and the Kent Sporting Goods Co. in Ashland before he joined a partnership that purchased the company in 1981. Today he is chairman of the board of Kent Watersports and an Ashland University trustee.

28

casealumni.org

Oliver Poppenberg Sr. ’59 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Ollie, a lifelong supporter of Case and the Case Alumni Association, experienced a special thrill this spring when his granddaughter graduated from his alma mater. Sophia Poppenberg ’21 earned her bachelor’s in chemicals engineering and joined her grandfather as a member of a Legacy Family – one with two or more graduates of the university. Before enjoying a career as an industrial engineer, Ollie swam for the Rough Riders and was an officer of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. A former president of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Case Alumni Association, he received the CAA’s Meritorious Service Award.

College of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona. Jim earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from Case Institute of Technology before attaining master’s and doctoral degrees in optics from Rochester.

Stephen Carr, MS ’67, PhD ’70 Evanston, Illinois Stephen has been named professor emeritus of materials science and engineering and chemical and biological engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University. He was a teacher, researcher and administrator at Northwestern for 23 years. Stephen retired in January.

Tom Prioreschi ’60, MBA ’64 Columbia, South Carolina Tom in June was honored with a “Key to the City” of Columbia, South Carolina, by Mayor Steve Benjamin, a tribute to his work as a builder and real estate developer. As owner of the development firm Capital Places, Tom has helped to repurpose and restore many of Columbia’s downtown properties, sparking the revitalization of the Main Street District. He earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Case Institute of Technology, where he was a brother of Phi Kappa Theta.

Ted R. Miller ’68 Silver Springs, Maryland Ted reports achieving several of his academic bucket-list goals, including attaining more than 111,111 citations, with more than 306 documents cited at least 10 times. In recent years, he’s been honored by the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine with its Vision Award and by the Injury Control and Emergency Health Services Section of the American Public Health Association with its Distinguished Career Award. Ted is principal research scientist at Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, which focuses on individual and social problems associated with alcohol and drug use. He earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering at Case Institute of Technology.

James Wyant ’65, PhD Tucson, Arizona Jim received an honorary doctorate of science degree from the University of Rochester at its May commencement ceremonies. A leader in the field of optical metrology, Jim is founder of two companies that produce optical measuring equipment–the WYKO Corporation and 4D Technology Corp— and a member of the National Academy of Inventors. He’s also professor emeritus and founding dean of the James C. Wyant

Earl Overstreet ’69, MBA ’74 Bellevue, Washington Earl has been named president of Global Market Innovators, one of the largest women and minorityowned information technology solutions companies in the United States. GMI was launched in 2020 when nVision Networking and Extreme Integration merged with General Microsystems Inc., the IT company Earl founded in 1983. Earl earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Case Institute of Technology and

1960s

his Master of Business Administration from CWRU. A star wide receiver and a high jumper for the Rough Riders, he was inducted into the Spartan Club Hall of Fame for football, track and field.

1970s Lance Liotta, MD, PhD ’74 Bethesda, Maryland Lance, a pathologist and bioengineer, has attracted national attention with his research into new methods to analyze COVID-19 antibodies to track responses to the virus and the vaccine. He is co-director of the Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine at the College of Science at George Mason University. Lance earned his doctorate in biomedical engineering at Case Institute of Technology.

Jennie Hwang, PhD ’76 Bedford, New York Jennie has been reappointed the chairman of the Board on Assessment of the U.S. Army Research Laboratories of the Department of Defense, where she shares her expertise in advanced manufacturing and technology transfer. She is CEO of H-Technologies Group, a consultancy focused on global business strategy. Jennie made Case history as the first woman to earn a doctorate from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Dominick J. Casadonte Jr. ’77, PhD Lubbock, Texas Dominick received the 2021 Council on Undergraduate Research-Goldwater Scholars Faculty Mentor Award, in recognition of his work mentoring nearly 90 undergraduates and 16 high school students in summer research programs. He’s the Minnie Stevens Piper Professor in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at Texas Tech University.

Dominick earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Case Institute of Technology.

Julie Gerberding ’77, MD Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania Julie inspired a new academic society in the CWRU School of Medicine. The Gerberding Society, the school’s sixth student society, honors her contributions to science and medicine. Julie made history in 2002 as the first woman appointed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She went on to become president of vaccines at Merck, where today she is the executive vice president and chief patient officer.

1980s John Rezabek ’81 Wapakoneta, Ohio

John, a process control specialist for Ashland Corp., was inducted into the 2021 class of the Control Process Automation Hall of Fame, recognizing his contributions to process control and instrumentation in the energy industry. John earned his bachelor’s degree in systems engineering at Case Institute of Technology. A lifelong musician and trombonist, he’s an alumni member of the Madison Scouts Drum & Bugle Corps, which has performed at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and at Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans.

Steven Conrad, MD, PhD '85 Shreveport, Louisiana Steve received the 2020 Outstanding Alumni Award from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where he earned bachelor’s degrees in biology and chemistry. A physician in Louisiana, he is credited with innovations that have improved care for critically ill patients. Steve earned his doctorate in biomedical engineering from the Case School of Engineering.

In 1986, he joined the faculty of LSU Health Sciences Center in Shreveport.

Adriana Velazquez Berumen ’86

Geneva, Switzerland

Adriana is the group lead for the Medical Devices and In-Vitro Diagnostics Unit at the World Health Organization (WHO). Her group just published its List of Priority Medical Devices for Cardiovascular Diseases and Diabetes. The book includes more than 500 types of medical devices used for diagnostics, treatment, monitoring and rehabilitation and is intended to inform the development of national health lists worldwide. Adriana earned her master’s degree in biomedical engineering at the Case School of Engineering and has fond memories of living at Steiner House.

Zi-Ping Fang, PhD ’88 Willoughby, Ohio Zi-Ping is the chief scientific officer for Neuros Medical, a Cleveland startup using neurostimulation technology to address chronic pain.

The company raised $38.5 million in its latest funding round, completing one of the largest venture capital deals in Northeast Ohio in 2020, according to Crain’s Cleveland Business. Zi-Ping earned his doctoral degree in biomedical engineering from the Case School of Engineering.

Wayne Wong ’89 Broadview Heights, Ohio Wayne is chief of the Thermal Energy Conversion Branch, Power Division, at the NASA Glenn Research Center, where he is helping to develop high-efficiency space power systems. A leader in his cultural community, he directs the Dragon Dance Team of the Organization of Chinese Americans of Greater Cleveland and is a co-founder and executive committee member of the Cleveland Asian Festival.

Wayne earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Case Institute of Technology.

Fall 2021

29

Class Notes 1990s Benedict Gomes ’90, PhD Palo Alto, California Ben has been appointed senior vice president of education at Google. Previously he was senior vice president of search engineering at the search engine giant. Ben earned his bachelor’s degree in computer engineering at Case Institute of Technology and joined Google in 1999 as one of its first employees.

Datuk Mohd Anuar Taib ’90 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Anuar in March was named CEO of Malaysia’s Sapura Energy, an oil services and exploration company that employs more than 11,000 people in 20 nations. He replaces company founder Shahril Shamsuddin in a planned succession. Anuar earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Case Institute of Technology and began his oil and gas career with Royal Dutch Shell. Previously, he was chairman of Shell Malaysia and CEO upstream of Petronas, Malaysia’s national oil company.

Paritosh Dhawale, MS ’91, PhD ’94 Schenectady, New York Paritosh was appointed senior vice president and general manager of GE’s Edison Health Services Platform, where he leads a team of more than 500 engineers and product managers who build AI-enabled digital applications for GE and its partners. “We are on a journey to digitally transform how we develop and sell medical software,” he reports.

Terri Goss Kinzy, PhD ’91 Kalamazoo, Michigan Terri, the vice president for Research and Innovation at Western Michigan University, has been named the 20th president of Illinois 30

casealumni.org

State University. She is the first female president in the university’s history. Terri earned her doctorate in biochemistry from Case. She previously served as vice president of research and professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Rutgers.

Paul Mraz, MS ’91 Duxbury, Massachusetts Paul is senior vice president of OrthoPediatrics Corp. and general manager of ApiFix Ltd., where he served as president and CEO prior to its acquisition by OrthoPediatrics in April 2020. He holds a dozen U.S. patents for medical devices and technologies. Paul lives with his wife and teenage daughters on the south shore of Boston and reports he does some of his best thinking while fishing and running half marathons.

Carmen (Mulder) Becker, MS ’93 Dallas, Texas Carmen was recognized by Plastics News as one of its Women Breaking the Mold in 2021. She’s the vice president and general manager at Amcor Rigid Plastics, a global leader in developing and producing sustainable, responsible packaging for consumer products. Carmen, a materials scientist, joined Amcor last year after leading Tetra Pak as president and CEO. Michael Finley ’93, PhD Allentown, Pennsylvania Michael was promoted to scientific director of Lead Evaluation & Cellular Pharmacology at Janssen R&D, a division of Johnson & Johnson.

In May of 2020, he and his colleagues were recognized with the Hofmann Award, the second highest research award at Johnson & Johnson, for their work in identifying a new class of inhibitors of the inflammasome, which may lead to therapies to treat Alzheimer’s disease. Michael earned his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry at Case.

Richard Mueller ’95 St. Charles, Illinois Rich discussed his experience launching and leading innovative medical device companies as part of the CWRU Entrepreneurship Speaker Series in June. He is the COO of Life Spine, an innovative spinal implant company. Previously, he founded and was CEO of ION VISION and was the CTO and then COO at TransEnterix. Rich earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at Case, where he played basketball for Coach Bill Sudeck. He holds 29 patents and enjoys driving his collection of classic cars.

Jeffrey Goldmeer, PhD ’96 Fairfield, Connecticut Jeff was promoted to the role of emergent technologies director for decarbonization at GE Gas Power, where he received a GE CEO award for his work in leading the company’s decarbonization activities. Jeff is the co-creator and co-host of the “Cutting Carbon” podcast, where he explores our energy future. He earned his Case doctorate in mechanical engineering.

John Jakovcic II ’96 Roswell, Georgia John has been appointed senior vice president of technology at MedRisk, a managed care provider in the workers’ compensation industry. He will focus on cybersecurity, business continuity and automation strategies. John earned his bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering at the Case School of Engineering.

Andrew T. Carroll, MSE ’98 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Andrew has been named vice president, Automotive OEM Coatings Americas and Mobility at PPG Industries, a Pittsburgh-based paint and coatings company. Previously, he was vice president, Industrial Coatings Americas. In his new role, Andrew will

lead the global rollout and execution strategy for PPG’s automotive mobility initiatives, which focus on autonomous and electric vehicles. He joined PPG 30 years ago and has held a range of leadership roles in technology, product management and mergers and acquisitions.

May Q. Liu ’98, PhD Raleigh, North Carolina May is a principal medical research scientist for Intuitive Surgical, a technology leader in minimally invasive and roboticassisted surgery.

After earning her bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering at Case, where she was a member of the Case Engineers Council and Alpha Phi Omega, she went on to Stanford for her doctorate in mechanical engineering.

2000s Jennifer Baus, ME ’01 South Euclid, Ohio Jennifer has been named senior vice president of design & entitlements at The NRP Group, a Cleveland-based apartment developer and general contractor with projects nationwide. She has risen steadily at NRP since joining the company as a project manager in 2005. In 2019, she was named a Women of Professional Excellence by the YWCA of Greater Cleveland.

Chunjiang ‘CJ’ Qian, PhD ’01 San Antonio, Texas CJ has been named an IEEE Fellow for contributions to control and estimation of nonlinear systems. He is a professor and chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Rosa Rivera-Hainaj, PhD ’01 Schertz, Texas Rosa is the new provost of McDaniel College in Maryland. She was selected following a national search and joined the college in July as its chief academic officer.

Previously, she served as associate vice president of academic affairs at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas, and as dean of science and mathematics at Lorain County Community College. Rosa earned her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, and came to Case to attain her doctorate in biochemistry.

Elizabeth (Matzinger) Matson ’03 College Park, Maryland Liz is an aerospace engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, where she started as an intern.

She is the deputy instrument systems engineer for L’Ralph, an infrared imager and panchromatic spectrometer for the upcoming Lucy mission toward Jupiter.

Liz also co-chairs the LGBT Advisory Board at the space center.

Brian Taylor ’05, MS ’09, PhD ’12 Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Brian is the principal investigator for the Quantitative Biology and Engineering Sciences Laboratory in the Department of Biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His latest research explores how animals use the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate as they travel thousands of miles on migratory paths — and the possible human applications. A three-degree alumnus, Brian earned his doctorate in mechanical engineering under the mentorship of Professor Roger Quinn.

Ya-Ting Liao, MS ’07, PhD ’11 Highland Heights, Ohio Ya-Ting, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the Case School of Engineering, received a $111,494 grant from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy in South Korea to examine the

fire hazards of lithium-ion batteries in energy storage systems. She will serve as principal investigator on the 18-month project. Ya-Ting, a fire behavior specialist, earned her master’s and doctorate degrees in mechanical and aerospace engineering at Case.

2010s Philip Stuckey, PhD ’12 Oak Ridge, Tennessee Philip is one of six science and technology innovators invited to the fifth cohort of the Innovations Crossroads program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The program supports science-based startups to help advance game-changing technologies. Phil, who joined Oak Ridge in June, is developing a 3D hierarchical separator and catalyst support system for fuel cells. He earned his doctoral degree in chemical engineering from Case.

Poorva Limaye ’13, MEM ’14 Cleveland, Ohio Poorva has started a new position as Project Leader, CHG, at Avery Dennison Medical.

Previously she was the lead color specialist for protective & marine coatings at PPG Industries in Pittsburgh.

Poorva earned a master of engineering and management and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering at the Case School of Engineering, where she was active in the Case Ballroom Dance Club.

Anjali Verma ’13, PhD Chapel Hill, North Carolina Anjali has accepted a position as a biomedical engineer with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Previously, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the school of pharmacy at the University of North Carolina. She earned her bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering at the Case School of Engineering, where she was president of Engineers Without Borders.

Fall 2021

31

Class Notes Ross Widenor ’13, MS ’13 Munroe Falls, Ohio Ross is now the sustainable mobility solutions PMO at Bridgestone Americas.

Previously, he was the open innovation project manager and a chemical engineer at the Akron tire maker.

He also serves on the Munroe Falls Park Board. Ross earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemical engineering from the Case School of Engineering, where he sang with the Case Men’s Glee Club.

Joseph Toth ’15, PhD ’20 Rockledge, Florida Joe has joined NASA’s Kennedy Space Center as a physicist. He earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering at the Case School of Engineering.

While pursuing his doctorate, he received a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct electrostatics research at the University of Turku in Finland. In May, he shared his insights on a panel for ChEGO, the Chemical Engineering Graduate Organization.

Sean “Chip” Kennedy ’16 New York, New York Chip, a software engineer and an entrepreneur, is an advisor to Tastemakers Africa, a global community connected to the Africa Diaspora.

He helped design and build the group’s cross-platform network and online marketplace as its CTO. He is also a volunteer leader and shelter captain for Christmas in the City, an annual Christmas party for homeless children in Boston and New York City. Chip earned his bachelor’s degree in computer engineering at Case and served as president of Undergraduate Student Government.

Chioma Onukwuire ’17, MEM ’18 Dearborn, Michigan Chioma is a compliance analyst for Wells Fargo and a contributing writer to KAMSI, 32

casealumni.org

an African fashion and lifestyle magazine.

She earned her bachelor’s degree in materials science at Case, where she developed her African fashion line CHIMU. Jessie Adkins ’18 Seattle, Washington Jesse has joined the engine systems team of Frostbite, a maker of gaming software and platforms, as a software engineer.

Previously she was with Amazon. She earned her bachelor’s degree in computer science at Case, where she was a member of the Hackers Society and Phi Sigma Rho sorority.

Luke A. Fakult ’18 Cleveland, Ohio

Luke is co-founder and craftsman at CoopedUp Cleveland, a builder of bespoke chicken houses. The company offers a total-care subscription service and sells frozen pasture-raised meat birds. Previously, Luke was a process engineer and project manager for Soundwich Inc. He earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at Case, where he was captain of the rowing team. In his free time, he designs and builds motorcycles.

Hillary Hellman ’19 Boston, Massachusetts After earning her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, Hillary went on to Northeastern for her master’s degree.

Today she is a machine design engineer for Procter & Gamble.

Meanwhile, she’ll be forever enshrined in CWRU athletics. As a member of the women’s basketball team, Hillary scored 1,593 points during her collegiate career, second in team history, and drained a record 220 three-point shots. She was team captain and a finalist for the Jostens Trophy.

Tyrel Hill ’19 Midland, Texas Tyrel is a production engineer for

Chevron. He earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering at Case, where he was president of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity and a member of the National Society of Black Engineers. An internship with Chevron led to a job after graduation.

Theodore Letsou ’19 Cambridge, Massachusetts Ted is a graduate research assistant at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, having received a prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. He earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering physics at the Case School of Engineering, where he conducted several research projects under the guidance of Professor Giuseppe Strangi.

Dasani Madipalli ’19 Bellevue, Washington Dasani is a product manager for Microsoft, where she builds and maintains features for the sales and marketing module.

She earned her bachelor’s degree in computer science at Case, where she shared her skills with local teens as a facilitator for Girls Who Code and was one of 20 women in North America named a Google Women Tech Makers Scholar.

2020s Adi Alkalay ’20 Lincolnshire, Illinois Adi has accepted a position as a technical solutions engineer for Epic. She earned her bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering at the Case School of Engineering, where she served as president of Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society. She also earned UAA All-Academic recognition as a member of the Women’s Swimming & Diving team.

Joshua Chiel ’20, MS ’20 College Park, Maryland Joshua was awarded a prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, which supports outstanding graduate students in STEM disciplines who are pursuing research-based advanced degrees. He’s a graduate teaching assistant in the department of physics at the University of Maryland. Joshua earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics and a master’s degree in physics at Case, where he was the winner of the Albert A. Michelson Prize.

Rueben Dockery Jr. ’20 Cleveland, Ohio Rueben is a manufacturing engineer for W.S. Tyler, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of wire cloth and mesh materials.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at Case, where he was secretary of the Case Engineers Council and a pole-vaulter for the Men’s Track & Field team.

Grace Furnas ’20 Cleveland, Ohio

Grace is an associate product development engineer at Moen and a member of the steering committee of Moen’s Women’s Engagement Network for STEM & Advocacy. In that role, she works with community groups like the Great Lakes Science Center to expose youth to science activities. Grace earned her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering at Case, where she was a member of the executive board of Camp Kesem.

Madison Hillyard ’20, MS ’21 Boston, Massachusetts Madison is joining MITRE Corp. as a Software Engineer.

The private, non-profit company provides engineering and technical guidance to

branches of the federal government. She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering at Case.

Rebecca Lalk ’20 Los Alamos, New Mexico Rebecca, an intern at Los Alamos National Laboratory, plans to pursue her doctorate in materials science and engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, beginning this fall. She was awarded a prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, which supports outstanding graduate students in STEM disciplines who are pursuing research-based advanced degrees.

Rebecca earned her bachelor’s degree in physics at Case, where she was a member of the Symphonic Winds and a founding member of the Women in Physics and Astronomy Club.

Ellie Martin ’20 Warren, Ohio

Ellie is a process engineer and associate scientist for Procter & Gamble, where she works in the skin care division. She earned her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering at Case, where she was active in student government and the Society of Women Engineers.

Max Berky ’21 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Max has accepted a position with Deliotte as a business technology analyst in its Healthcare Division. He earned his bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering at the Case School of Engineering, where he was a lab assistant and vice president of the Entrepreneurship Club.

Send your updates, including photos, about job promotions, professional development and personal milestones to casealum@casealum.org.

Benjamin Cheung ’21 Houston, Texas Benny plans to pursue a doctorate in applied physics at Rice University. A pianist and a composer, he completed a double major in math-physics and music at CWRU, where he was president of the Origami Club.

Rohan Desai ’21 Madison, Wisconsin Rohan has accepted a position with Epic as an integration engineer after earning bachelor’s degrees in biomedical engineering and economics.

As a student, he was an officer for the Undergraduate Indian Student Association and a member CWRU’s competitive Garga-Raas style dance team.

Marlee Dingle ’21 Madison, Wisconsin Marlee has joined Saint-Gobain as a rotational engineer in its Essentials of Manufacturing Rotational Program. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Polymer Science and Engineering at Case, where she was a peer advisor for the Case School of Engineering and played varsity volleyball.

Devika “Ria” Nandwana ’21 Cleveland, Ohio

Devika is taking her bachelor’s degree in materials science and engineering to the CWRU School of Medicine, where she plans to pursue her medical degree. She received Emergency Medical Technician certification as a first-year student and has served EMT shifts on campus ever since. This semester, Devika administered vaccines and provided other volunteer services at Covid-19 vaccination clinics, including the CWRU site.

Fall 2021

33

Class Notes Sophia Poppenberg ’21 Cincinnati, Ohio Sophia is joining Proctor & Gamble as a research development engineer. She earned her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. This spring she joined her grandfather Oliver Poppenberg Sr. ’59 as a member of a Legacy Family – one with two or more graduates of the university. Sophia played club lacrosse and was a member of Phi Mu sorority while at Case.

Ben Stawicki ’21 Cleveland, Ohio

Ben joined MIM Software as a clinical support engineer in the radiation oncology market. He had interned at the Cleveland medical imaging company while earning his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. As a member of the varsity baseball team, Ben was selected for the UAA All-Academic Team.

Emma Wyckoff ’21 Columbus, Ohio Emma has joined Gresham Smith as a water resources engineer-in-training.

Previously, she was a pathways intern for NASA at the Kennedy Space Center. Emma earned her bachelor’s degree in civil and environmental engineering at Case, where she was an office assistant for the Case Alumni Association.

Maurice “Mike” Adams; Mech/Aerospace Eng. Professor; Cleveland, OH; 5-16-21

John P. Zassick ’54; Parma, OH; 1-19-21

Ronald R. Bousek PhD ’63; Santa Fe, NM; 3-19-21

Jay R. Jacoby ’55; Huber Hts., OH; 1-24-21

Carl S. Bacik ’48; Hudson, OH; 5-25-21

Joseph D. Wander PhD ’63; Panama City, FL; 2-28-21

Thomas Schiller ’56; Cleveland, OH; 2-1-18

Robert A. Kempe ’48; Chagrin Falls, OH; 11-30-20

James D. Kusko ’64; Morrisdale, PA; 8-6-21

Douglas Underwood ’56; Davis, CA; 6-2-21

Robert W. Sharp ’48; Mount Washington, KY; 1-6-21

Bruce M. Smackey MS ’64; Garden City, ID; 5-21-21

Harold A. Wittlinger ’56; Haverford, PA; 1-30-21

Harold F. Fox ’49; Englewood, OH; 4-19-21

Chang Lo Wu PhD ’64; Denver, CO; 5-19-20

Millard L. Wohl ’56; Gaithersburg, MD; 11-17-19

James B. Kelly ’49; Akron, OH; 5-28-20

William C. Strach MS ’65; Strongsville, OH; 5-4-21

John F. Finch ’57; Kirkwood, MS; 4-20-21

Rodney W. Scherr ’49; N. Augusta, SC; 6-27-21

Henry G. Young, Jr. ’65; Aurora, NC; 1-11-21

Richard J. Pazderak ’57; Novelty, OH; 2-24-21

William C. Schmitz ’49; North Park, PA; 5-24-15

Walter F. Evans ‘66; Fayetteville, AR; 4-16-21

David C. Wyatt ’57; Akron, OH; date unknown

Ned E. Desenberg ’50; Rochester, NY; 3-5-21

Wayne E. Amacher ’58; Sunnyvale, CA; 2-14-21

Donald F. Kreinbring ’66, MS ’77; Kalamazoo, MI; 3-13-21

Arthur A. Longano ’50; Port Saint Lucie, FL; 2-21-21

John F. Mioduszeski ’58; Cuyahoga Falls, OH; 1-30-21

Russell L. Stainfield ’66; Gibsonia, PA; 10-1-20

Charles E. Weitz, Jr. ’50; Warrenton, VA; 3-2-21

Richard F. Reinhart ’58; Stow, OH; 1-10-21

Harold L. Wade MS ’66, PhD ’70; Houston, TX; 5-24-21

John N. Nelson ’51; Willoughby, OH; 6-15-21

Charles S. Wiley ’58; New Wilmington, PA; 7-10-21

John H. Kolena ’68; Durham, NC; 11-25-20

James C. Ryan ’51; Germantown, TN; 2-27-21

Robert B. Ashby ’59; Spotsylvania, VA; 12-3-20

Roy R. Sykes ’68; Redondo Beach, CA; date unknown

Donald L. Southam ’51, MS ’54; Willoughby, OH; 8-9-20

Robert J. Guyan MS ’59, PhD ’64; Pasadena, CA; 3-7-21

Robert C. Fuehr ’69; Castle Rock, CO; 3-7-21

Robert E. Alexovich ’52; Avon Lake, OH; 3-30-21

Donald A. Lindval ’59; Ridgecrest, CA; 4-13-14

J. Frederick Doering ’52; Akron, OH; 8-17-21

John W. Merck ’59; Abilene, TX; 1-22-21

Richard T. Lauer MS ’96, PhD ’01; Fort Washington, PA; 2-22-21

Walter Jakobowski ’52; Silver Spring, MD; 2-1-21

Elliot H. Myers ’59, Cleveland Hts., OH; 11-7-19

Robert P. Lund ’52; Devon, PA; 2-7-21

John S. Shott ’60; Brecksville, OH; 4-25-21

George M. Prochko ’52; Middleburg Hts., OH; 12-10-20

Thomas E. Sikora ’60; Denver, CO; 4-7-21

Lynn H. Rood ’52; Minneapolis, MN; 4-2-21

Donald L. Clason ’61; Willoughby, OH; 2-15-21

Daniel M. Mason ’70; Rocky River, OH; 12-23-20

Eugene B. Ulanowicz ’52; Grand Rapids, MI; 3-18-21

Murray R. Edelman ’61; Cleveland, OH; 5-16-21

William H. Powell MS ’70; Westlake Village, CA; 2-4-21

J. Roger Deery ’53; Sarasota, FL; 3-27-21

Peter C. Fishburn MS ’61, PhD ’62; Racine, WI; 6-10-21

Thomas P. Donaughe ’72; Rochester Hills, MI; 4-26-21

Henry N. Fisher ’53; Crofton, MD; 12-17-20

S. Peter Gary ’61; Sante Fe, NM; 4-21-21

Patrick J. Banchy ’73; Tucson, AZ, 7-4-21

John L. Klann ’53; North Olmsted, OH; 1-19-21

Carl P. Gulla, Jr. ’61; Mayfield Hts., OH; 2-10-21

Lewis A. Burkley MS ’75, PhD ’76; Reston, VA; 1-15-20

William O. Klever ’53; Phoenix, AZ; 2019

Robert A. Levine ’61, MS ’63; Export, PA; 3-31-21

Terry L. Kimble, P.E. ’77; Mauldin, SC; 5-2-21

Raymond C. Loehr ’53, MS ’56; Ashburn, VA; 4-15-21

Paul J. Maloney ’61; Troy, MI; 6-20-21

Susan Slaughter Sachs PhD ’79; Lakewood, OH; 3-16-21

Glen R. Brown, Jr. MS ’54, PhD ’56; Moreland Hills, OH; 5-16-21

Larry L. Wilson ’61; Poway, CA; 3-8-21

Daniel D. Werrell ’80; Mason, OH; 2-12-21

Stanley L. Raskin ’62; Cleveland, OH; 1-1-21

Frederick W. Dynys PhD ’85; Chardon, OH; 5-31-21

Frederick P. Herke, Jr. P.E. ’54; St. Paul, MN; 10-24-21

William H. Schultz ’62, MS ’67; Willoughby, OH; 2-3-21

Ruth B. Valentine MS ’86; Bedford, MA; 10-15-15

Alan W. Peterson ’54; Hudson, OH; 3-16-21

Ralph B. Wood ’62; Ellicott, MD; 4-4-21

Courtney Baker ’18, MS ’18; Marquette Hts., IL; 6-1-21

In Memoriam

34

casealumni.org

Paul D. Vasko MS ’69, PhD ’71: Youngstown, OH; 7-9-21 John F. Paul ’69, MS ’71, PhD ’74; Raleigh, NC; 8-11-19

TRIBUTE Glenn Brown June 1, 1930 – May 16, 2021

W

hen he arrived on Case Quad in 1986, Glenn Robbins Brown Jr., MS ’54, PhD ’56, already had considerable experience building teams and inspiring innovation across a large organization. He had risen to the top of the science and engineering ranks at Standard Oil of Ohio (SOHIO), and was an influential voice on non-profit boards around town. The tall, affable engineer now took on a new challenge — helping shape the future of a world-class research university.

As dean of the colleges at Case Western Reserve, Brown was the first dean of the combined faculties of Case Institute of Technology and Western Reserve College. He was hired to accelerate a process that had begun with federation 20 years before, bringing empathy, imagination and business acumen to the quest, observers say.

Brown died May 16, 2021, at the age of 90, leaving the modern university and a more confident city as his legacy.

“Glenn was able to encourage people to explore challenges and look at opportunities, and he was good at that,” said university historian and former administrator Richard “Dick” Baznik. “He was able to help the institution go through changes which have lasted, and which have brought benefits to the university.”

Tom Kicher ’59, MS ’62, PhD ’65, the former dean of the Case School of Engineering, said Brown saw his role at Case as a crowning achievement in an illustrious career.

“He was good at the global level. He had that vision,” Kicher said. “And he was a charming guy.”

Born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, Brown grew up in a home with six boys and no indoor plumbing.

He was class president in high school, where he excelled at baseball and basketball, and he went on to Penn State for a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering.

Shortly after graduation, Brown joined the research division of the Standard Oil Company, where his experiences included operations research, managing fuel cell programs, running the coal and uranium businesses and promoting biotechnology and emerging materials.

While working full-time, Brown earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering from Case. He rose to become senior vice president, technology and planning at SOHIO and a member of the company board of directors.

Brown left SOHIO in 1986, as British Petroleum Ltd. of London assumed full control of a company founded in Cleveland by John D. Rockefeller in 1870. He played no role as BP moved the American headquarters and more than 1,000 jobs out of the city.

Brown had engaged with university administrators while an executive at SOHIO, said Baznik, who served as special assistant to university President Louis Toepfer in the 1970s. In 1986, the university gave Brown a full-time role.

“I think the university saw the opportunity to take advantage of his presence,” Baznik said. “He was obviously a leader in the community. He was a very distinctive figure. And he was a big fan of the university.”

Brown started as director of strategic planning but soon was named dean of the colleges. He was asked to break down barriers between the schools and to begin the long process of reorganizing the faculty, Baznik said. After two years as dean, he transitioned to vice provost for corporate research and technology transfer, where he promoted research and helped connect the university to local and national investors.

In 1987, he married long-time friend and former SOHIO co-worker Jeanette Grasselli Brown, MS ’58, BP America's first female director of corporate research. The couple emerged as champions of Cleveland’s arts and music institutions while Jennie and Glenn Brown promoting science and engineering in schools and in the halls of government. As science advisor to former Gov. Bob Taft, Brown helped lay the foundation for Ohio’s Third Frontier program.

In 2012, the husband-wife team was honored with the H. Peter Burg Regional Vision Award by Team NEO, the highest honor bestowed by the regional economic development agency.

The family suggests memorial contributions be made to the Playhouse Square Foundation, of which Brown was chair from 1991-96 and a life member of the board.

Fall 2021

35

“LONG WE’LL REMEMBER…” CLASS OF COVID-19

She and her classmates lost a lot to the pandemic — but they maybe gained something, too.

By Emma Wyckoff ’21

O

n March 10, 2020, I had just arrived home in Florida for spring break when the email came from the university.

Classes would be moved to remote learning for three weeks, a precaution against Covid cases rising in Ohio. My first thought was regret that I had left my textbooks on campus, but I was also excited for a few extra weeks of Florida sunshine. Three days later, we received another email. This one announced that online classes would continue through the semester. Suddenly, this was no longer an extended spring break.

Spring at Case is the busiest, most beautiful time of year, and now landmark events like the Hudson Relays, Springfest and Greek Games were cancelled. Every student organization now scrambled to decide how to continue operations virtually. Professors hastily changed their lecture plans to accommodate teaching over Zoom.

We were directed to move out of campus housing as soon as possible.

One weekend in late March, my dad and I drove from Florida to Cleveland.

I remember seeing my dad, who rarely shows weakness or emotion, cry as he saw the empty campus. The North Residential Village, always bustling with students, was a ghost town. “This is not how college in the spring is supposed to look,” he said.

Like many of my classmates, my brain went into autopilot and I somehow finished the hardest semester of my college years. Finding the motivation to study for finals was difficult when the Kelvin Smith Library was no longer an option. I turned 21 and didn’t have my first beer at The Jolly Scholar like I had planned. I didn’t get to say goodbye to friends from the Class of 2020. I was unable to land the summer 36

casealumni.org

internship of my dreams, as so many were cancelled.

As summer progressed, and the university had time to plan; things began to brighten. Freshman and seniors were allowed to move back on campus last fall. Classes would still be mostly remote, but limited access to libraries, dining halls and academic buildings offered a taste of normalcy.

Back at school, new traditions were born and some old traditions returned in a different form. Socially-distanced Bingo in Thwing (“Thwingo!”) became the highlight of Thursday nights. The CWRU Film Society still screened weekend movies in Strosacker, only with social distancing and masks. We were encouraged to meet up with friends outside, as visitors were prohibited in dorms. On the weekends,

We are the first generation to experience a pandemic in 100 years. If Covid has taught me anything, it is that patience and persistence are key.

DiSanto Field filled with students spread out in lawn chairs, throwing frisbees and walking the track together.

I started applying for a spring semester internship as they became available. After months of delay, I was offered a position as an engineering intern at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida.

Finally, all of my hard work had paid off.

The weekly Zoom meetings with my CWRU classmates were traded for weekly Microsoft Teams meetings with other NASA interns, since popping into each other’s cubicles was now a thing of

the past. I took every opportunity to go on-center for construction inspections, walkdowns, and yes, rocket launches.

Not many students can say they spent their last semester of college watching four astronauts launch to the International Space Station. But I can.

We are the first generation to experience a pandemic in 100 years. If Covid has taught me anything, it is that patience and persistence are key. This pandemic did not end as quickly as we expected, but safety protocols and vaccine rollouts got us through. Proactive planning by CWRU allowed the Class of 2021 to celebrate an almost-normal Senior Week, as well as a live commencement.

On my first day of classes in 2017, I knew I was in for four years of hard work, long nights of studying, and new memories. While none of us anticipated a pandemic, I am confident that, despite everything, my fellow graduates and I are ready to take on the world as Case alumni.

Emma graduated in May with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering and has joined Gresham Smith as a water resources engineer-in-training. Reach her at ecw60@case.edu.

Do you have a Case memory to share? Let’s hear it. Email robert.smith@casealum.org

Giving Corner

COST-EFFECTIVE GIVING How to Make the Most of Your Retirement Plan Assets Consider using your retirement plan assets for a charitable gift after your lifetime, and give more to your favorite charity and less to the tax man. When you leave retirement plan assets to family, a portion of those assets can be consumed by taxes. Instead, consider leaving your family assets that are less heavily taxed (such as real estate, cash or life insurance) and use your retirement plan assets to make gifts to tax-exempt charitable organizations, such as the Case Alumni Foundation.

To name the Case Alumni Foundation as the beneficiary of your retirement account, simply contact your retirement plan administrator for a change-of-beneficiary form or download a form from your provider’s website. Decide what percentage of the account you wish to direct to the Case Alumni Foundation, sign and return the plan to your administrator. Let us know of your intent so that we can ensure your gift supports the area of your choosing.

The benefits of donating retirement plan assets • It allows you to make a cost-effective gift and save other, less taxed assets for loved ones • You eliminate all federal income taxes when you name the Case Alumni Foundation as the sole beneficiary.

(Or receive partial savings when splitting between a charity and your family.)

• You can name the Case Alumni Foundation as a contingent beneficiary, allowing for greater flexibility • You can change your mind at any time

Making a gift today If you’re 70½ or older, you can make a tax-free gift to the Case Alumni Foundation from your retirement plan assets today. Current law allows you to transfer any amount (up to $100,000) directly to a qualified charitable organization each year without paying income tax on the distribution while satisfying your required minimum distribution.

Best yet, your gift can be put to use immediately. This popular gift option is commonly called the IRA charitable rollover, but you may also see it referred to as a qualified charitable distribution, or QCD for short.

Learn more about how a gift of retirement plan assets can benefit your family, the Case Alumni Foundation and the students, faculty and staff at Case. To get started, contact Steve Zinram at 216.368.8841 or stephen.zinram@casealum.org today.

Disclosure Statement: The information in this article is not intended as legal or tax advice. For such advice, please consult an attorney or tax advisor. Figures cited in any examples are for illustrative purposes only. References to tax rates include federal taxes only and are subject to change. State law may further impact your individual results.

CASE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION Tomlinson Hall, Room 109 10900 Euclid Avenue Cleveland, Ohio 44106-1712

NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION U.S. POSTAGE PAID CLEVELAND, OHIO PERMIT NO. 2120