Around the Quad

With help from sharpshooting engineering students, the men’s basketball team made history.

A remarkable season for the Spartan men’s basketball team ended March 11 with an overtime loss to the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in a packed Horsburgh Gym — but, oh, what a run.

The boys in blue and white had reached the sectional semifinals of the Division III NCAA tournament — the Sweet 16 — for the first time in school history. With the help of sharpshooting science and engineering students, they created one of the greatest stories in the history of CWRU sports.

People noticed. The success of true scholar athletes attracted fans and media attention. Terry Pluto, the popular sports columnist for The Plain Dealer, twice published columns about the talent and resolve of players focused on academics while playing basketball at a high level. He told his readers how there were no movies on the team bus to tournament games in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, as players had to study.

Even CWRU’s sleepy fans came alive. They crowded Horsburgh Gym in the Veale Athletic Center for the Sweet 16 game. Many alumni came back to cheer on the team, which had a way of winning in dramatic fashion.

The overtime loss ended a dream season, but the accomplishments will echo

Spartans win in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Photo by Steve Frommell, UW-Oshkosh Athletics

for years. After not playing at all last year due to Covid-19, here’s what the 2021-2022 Spartans achieved: • The team ended the season with a record of 20-7

• The 20 wins are a program best, as are the eight wins in the UAA • The team finished second in the conference, also a program best • It’s the first CWRU team to reach the NCAA Tournament and the first to earn postseason wins (two)

Three graduate transfer students elevated an already solid team, but undergraduate STEM majors played big roles. Ryan Newton scored 38 points in two tournament games off the bench, leading his team to the Sweet 16. He’s expected to graduate in May with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.

Forward Cole Frilling, a mechanical and aerospace engineering major, averaged 16 points a game. A junior, he’s expected to play a starring role again next year.

Also eligible to return will be junior Josh Levy (computer science) sophomore Daniel Florey (mechanical engineering); and freshmen Luke Gensler (electrical engineering) and Umar Rashid (computer science).

So next year may be another season to shout about.

With this illustration, the Brew Crew — a team of Case chemical engineering graduate students — won Best Poster in the AIChE Beer Brewing Competition at the 2021 annual meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in November in Boston. The team of Maura Sepesy, Jacob Hostert, Marola Issa and Hairou Yu was honored for the artfully clear depiction of its beer brewing process. A second Case team, Over the Hops, won for Best New Team and Most Efficient Brew. That team is made up of Will Dean, Drace Penley, Rachel Beller and Bethany Kersten. We toast them all.

Not only is he president of Case Western Reserve University, Eric Kaler, PhD, is an accomplished chemical engineer. That background shines through in a new report calling for deeper federal investment in chemical engineering to solve society’s challenges.

Kaler chaired the committee that wrote New Directions for Chemical Engineering, a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine that outlines an ambitious future for the field.

The study argues that fresh support for chemical engineering is critical to maintaining U.S. leadership and meeting coming challenges — including

CWRU President Eric Kaler leads a call for more national support for chemical engineering. generating medical advances and smoothing the transition to renewable energy. Released Feb. 9, the report argues that chemical transformations made possible many of society’s advances, like synthetic fertilizers that enabled the Green Revolution, and that chemical engineers are ready to create new marvels. “Chemical engineering is often at the heart of solutions to many of the problems we face, but for our field to stay in a position of global leadership and continue our pace of innovation, we need to reaffirm strong investment in this field,” Kaler said in a statement. A former professor of chemical engineering at the University of Minnesota, Kaler is a tenured professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Case School of Engineering and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He said the report points to opportunities to be seized. Pressing issues chemical engineers can address include: • Decarbonizing the U.S economy • Creating a cleaner, healthier environment • Advancing drug discovery • Making healthcare cheaper and more equitable • Advancing the “circular economy” where much is repurposed and reused Find the study at the National Academies website, www.nationalacademies.org.

The AMMRC marks 35 years of finding the best materials for the job.

When Distinguished University Pro- several rooms on three fessor John Lewandowski founded his lab floors of the Charles 35 years ago, prized equipment included White Metallurgy a small but mighty rolling mill capable of Building, home to the shaping steel and aluminum alloys destined Department of Materials for cars. Science and Engineering.

Today, his researchers are just as likely “I don’t think to test the reliability of parts for implantable you’ll find something devices, like pacemakers, where failure like this anywhere in really is not an option. the country,” he said.

The goal of assuring reliability shines “And it continues on, but the challenges loom more sophisti- to expand.” cated at the Advanced Manufacturing and That’s because Mechanical Reliability Center, a proving products, processes, ground for the materials that comprise the and materials to produce them continue products of modern life. to grow more refined and complex.

The uncommon center is celebrating Recently, a student researcher found a landmark birthday in 2022 with plans the flaw causing cracks to form in a truck for growth. Lewandowski, the center part. Lewandowski’s team helped the director, expects to install about $1 million manufacturer tighten its steel specifications worth of equipment this year. He has to solve the problem. high hopes for game-changing grants that In a quieter room with finer scale would allow the center to advance into equipment, Janet Gbur, PhD ’18, tests robotic controls. wires and cables used in implantable

Meanwhile, he’s busy running a one- electrodes, tiny devices to be implanted of-a-kind center that sprawls across in the human body.

Janet Gbur and John Lewandowski stand aside a Instru-Met uniaxial testing machine in the AMMRC, each holding specimens to be tested. “No one has the breadth of what we have here,” said Gbur, the center’s senior researcher. The AMMRC contains about $5 million worth of equipment, Lewandowski estimates. That includes fatigue testers, extruders, melters, and forging/forming simulators that pound, stretch, bend, and deform materials of all shapes and sizes. Throughout the year, the center will be highlighting its capabilities and celebrating its legacy with events and reflections posted to its website: ammrc.case.edu.

Greek organizations like SAE are gathering again, resuming treasured traditions.

Founders Day resonated with a little more fervor this spring at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house at Hazel and Magnolia drives, just off campus. With Covid-19 restrictions relaxed, alumni returned to participate in a live rite of brotherhood for the first time in two years.

Making the moment more auspicious, the fraternity was celebrating its first Founders Day in its new house. Alumni had raised some $400,000 to transform a musty old mansion into a practical and handsome home for 23 students.

On March 18, about a dozen alumni arrived to share lunch and to display another stream of support. In what’s becoming an SAE Founders Day tradition, they awarded scholarships in honor of a distinguished alumnus.

Alumni and students gathered in the living room and applauded as, one by one, five young men were called forward

Ken Barker '70 drove in from Pittsburgh to attend Founders Day activities with his SAE brothers.

to receive scholarships ranging in value from $1,500 to $2,500. The scholars were chosen by an alumni scholarship committee for their contributions to the house and to the brotherhood. It’s a tie that binds.

“Supporting the brotherhood, as well as the school, is a cause that’s near and dear to all of us,” said Marc Vitantonio ’82, chairman of the SAE scholarship committee.

“We have a great alumni base. It’s awesome,” said chapter president Austin Grillo, a civil engineering major. He noted the chapter’s alumni also staff a mentor-mentee program for the sophomores. “Our alumni are very important to us. They keep us grounded.”

The SAE scholarships are named in honor of Philip Legge ’43, a former administrator for Case Institute of Technology and an active SAE nearly his entire life before his death in 2009. They are administered by the Case Alumni Association.

The 2022 Legge Scholars of the SAE are juniors Austin Grillo, Lucas Decaro, Joseph Cavallo, Randolph Ayers and Antonio Orsini.

The chipmaker is looking to schools like Case to fill a talent pipeline.

Several weeks after unveiling plans for a $20 billion microchip manufacturing plant in central Ohio, Intel explained how it plans to staff the giant facility. On March 17, company executives announced a $50 million fund to help Ohio colleges and universities train the skilled workers it needs.

That was welcome news at the Case School of Engineering.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Christian Zorman, MS ’91, PhD ’94, the Associate Dean for Research at CSE. He added that it raises a big question: “How can Case be relevant to the largest single economic development proposal Ohio’s ever seen?”

Zorman represented Case at the announcement event at Columbus State Community College. He learned that Intel expects about 25 percent of the plant’s 3,000-person workforce to be engineers. Another 70 percent will be skilled technicians, and five percent of jobs will be unskilled.

The engineering roles span the field, he said, from chemical and mechanical engineers to materials scientists and physicists. Interestingly, computer scientists are not in high demand at a chipmaking plant. “They’re the customers,” Zorman said. “This is a highend manufacturing process, starting with sand.” Ohio State University is seen in the best position for jobs and influence, based on its size and proximity to the Intel complex. But faculty and Case students are familiar with manufacturing very small precision products — and Intel now knows it.

Two days before the Columbus gathering, Intel executives visited Case. Zorman shared the school’s expertise in microsensors and nano-scale devices, explained relevant courses, and showed them several labs equipped with “clean rooms” that allow for microfabrication and research.

“They were like, ‘Wow, yep, this is definitely related,’ which is what I expected,” he said.

Now a deadline looms. Intel has given schools until May 31 to apply for a share of the Ohio fund, which complements a $100 million national research fund. It wants to hear plans for curriculums, programs, and lab enhancements that can advance a chipmaking industry in Ohio.

Case will be ready with proposals, Zorman said, and ready for a new era. He noted CSE already sends graduates to similar jobs out of state. “Now, for the first time, we don’t have to point them south and west to do this kind of work.”