Engineers' Forum September 2022

Engineers’ Forum SEPTEMBER 2022 VOLUME 43

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Volume 43, No. 2

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Photo / Nidhi Chopdekar

On the Cover Alumni Mall

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Virginia Tech’s 150th Anniversary Jolene Ghosh

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Engineering Everywhere Ethan Chung

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Teacher Spotlight Nidhi Chopdekar

O-Show Adeline Ghosh

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Welcome to the September 2022 issue of Engineers’ Forum!

With the start of the fall semester, our team is so excited that you have chosen to pick up a copy of our magazine! In this issue, we have a variety of articles from Virginia Tech’s 150th anniversary to professor spotlights. We are looking forward to everything that the new school year has to offer and hope you enjoy reading about what has been happening thus far!

Starting off with a recent celebration, Jolene Ghosh highlights Virginia Tech’s 150th anniversary. This article encompasses some of Virginia Tech’s rich history along with how the University is honoring its past. This is a must-read for anyone interested in knowing more about the growth of Virginia Tech!

One of our newest writers, Ethan Chung, focuses on the transition that Virginia Tech’s Study Abroad Programs have faced in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through this article, you can learn more about the experiences, cultures explored, and insider information that a student would have in the various study abroad programs for engineering.

For those of you who are interested in the computer science department, Nidhi Chopdekar shares exclusive insight into an Affiliate Professor, Dr. Nicholas Polys. This includes specifics of his research, student achievements, and how students can get involved in various opportunities within the computer science department at Virginia Tech.

Lastly, I, Adeline Ghosh, covered the classic freshmen engineering event known as O-Show. If you would like to learn more about what goes on during this exciting event, this is the article for you. It explains the history of O-Show as well as the sorts of activities and organizations that one could find if they attended.

We appreciate your continued support of our mission: to capture the student engineering experience at Virginia Tech. Enjoy!

Sincerely, Adeline Ghosh Editor-in-Chief

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Engineers’ Forum Editor-in-Chief

Adeline Ghosh - Finance

(‘24)

Creative Director

Stella Shin - Architecture (‘25)

Chief Copy Editor

Bethany Hillmann - Creative Writing (‘25)

Managing Editor Business Manager

Alexander Petsopoulos - Aerospace Engineering (Graduate ‘22) Jolene Ghosh - Economics (‘25)

Webmaster

Nidhi Chopdekar - Computer Science (Graduate)

Writers

Adeline Ghosh - Economics (‘24) Bethany Hillmann - Creative Writing (‘25) Jolene Ghosh - Economics (‘25) Nidhi Chopdekar - Computer Science (Graduate) Ethan Chung - Mechanical Engineering (‘25) Maaz Hasan - Mechanical Engineering (‘24)

Photography Team

Nidhi Chopdekar - Computer Science (Graduate) Jessica Savage - General Engineering (‘25)

Design Team

Stella Shin - Architecture (‘25) Nidhi Chopdekar - Computer Science (Graduate)

Faculty Advisors

@vtengineers_forum

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Virginia Tech - Engineers’ Forum

www.vtengineersforum.com

(Background) Parts from Randolph Hall Photo / Kendal Price

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Virginia Tech’s 150th Anniversary Article /

Jolene Ghosh

Sesquicentennial Celebration Virginia Tech was founded on June 20th of 1872. In a monumental achievement for Virginia Tech, July of 2021 marked the beginning of the university’s 150th anniversary which will be celebrated until December of 2022. The celebration began with Virginia Tech announcing the 150th anniversary along with their logo and will end at this year’s fall commencement ceremony. Hitting the 150th year since being founded has led Virginia Tech to reach for new goals and ensure that students have the resources that they need to be successful.

The university is continuously looking to improve upon its systems for education, building communities, and providing students with opportunities for growth. There have been events around campus to celebrate the anniversary such as reaching larger community service goals, selling 12oz drip coffee for $1.50 on Thursdays during April of 2022, and having a celebration at D2 with dishes by an executive chef.

150 years sign at D2 | Picture by Jolene Ghosh

Virginia Tech Dining Services has special events throughout the year such as their International Cafe Hours, chocolate milk events at D2, Oktoberfest, Thanksgiving meals, all-day breakfast events, and many others. Their international Cafe Hours showcase international cuisines. In order to ensure the authenticity of the dishes, they partner with Cranwell International Center and various cultural organizations on campus. For the fall of 2022 semester, there will be International Cafe Hours featuring Pakistan, Af rican, and Afghan cultural cuisine.

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To further celebrate the 150th celebration, Virginia Tech hung banners on lamp posts, Burruss Hall, and around campus. Various organizations and University groups at Virginia Tech also had their own events to celebrate. Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) and Virginia Cooperative Extension added a few of their favorite parts of history to their website for students, alumni, and others to reminisce upon. They included pictures to show their research on horses, healthy food, STEM, potato farming techniques, livestock farming, and others. Virginia Tech Liberal Arts also chose to make new history by having their Humanities week in February. The event took place f rom February 7th to 11th. It included events such as sessions on disability culture, celebrating poetry with Nikki Giovanni, an ethics bowl, and other events. The location of the events changed based on the day and some were available to attend in person and virtually. A highlight of the event was the keynote speaker, Kwame Anthony Appiah. He serves as a professor at New York University and has written for a column in the New York Times.

In addition, The Alumni Relations at Virginia Tech had a celebration in December of 2021 in Washington DC at the City Winery. Part of their registration fee for the event went towards supporting the Innovation Campus in Alexandria, Virginia.

Virginia Tech Historic Markers

Lane Stadium | Picture by Jolene Ghosh

Recently, Virginia Tech added historical markers to celebrate the university’s history. There are seven markers in total which are located at Henderson Lawn, Moss Arts Center, Washington Street, Eggleston Quad, West Campus Drive, Solitude, and the Library Plaza.

The topics of the markers include The Early Years; Campus over Time, People and Place; Land-Grant College, Black History; Black Community, Student Diversity, Native Stewardship; The Monacan Peoples, Enslaved Peoples and the Prestons; From Plantation to College Campus, and Women’s History; Women on Campus.

Virginia Tech’s 150th anniversary banner | Picture by Jolene Ghosh

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The Black History marker contained events f rom the year 1953 to 2020. It starts off by mentioning the f irst Black student at Virginia Tech, Linwood Peddrew III. He attended the university as an electrical engineering major. In 1966, the f irst Black women enrolled in Virginia Tech and the next year, the college had its f irst Black college-level athlete.

The marker highlights signif icant events regarding Black history at Virginia Tech that shaped the university. By adding these markers to campus, it allows students, parents, alumni, and many others to learn more about signif icant f igures at Virginia Tech and their stories. In the Black Community marker, it shared the story of how the f irst Black students were able to attend Virginia Tech, due to the Supreme Court allowing them to do so, along with the requirements to attend the university. It also goes on to share how some of the Black staff members supported the students and cheered them on in their endeavor to study at Virginia Tech.

None of these timelines and stories could have been shared through markers without the Council on Virginia Tech History and the Historic Markers Committee who have worked tirelessly to ensure that Virginia Tech’s history is available to everyone.

The organization is led by Jack Rosenberger, who is the Chair of the Committee, and the members include Denny Cochrane, Clara Cox, Bob Leonard, Meghan Marsh, Paul Quigley, Emily Satterwhite, and Peter Wallenstein. With each of their areas of expertise, they were able to create and f ind locations for the markers to be readily available to see on campus.

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“Virginia Tech Diversity Mural” by Rhakim Smith. The mural is on the Black Community historical marker | Picture by Jolene Ghosh

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Engineering Everywhere -

Returning to normalcy for Engineering Study Abroad programs

Article /

Ethan Chung

Introduction: In light of the Covid-19 virus, and as a returning sense of normalcy begins to settle in again, studying abroad begins to wind up again for an even more impactful return. Overseas travel for the past two years has seemed like a distant dream, but with each passing day, Virginia Tech is expanding its programs globally for students to gain an experience of a lifetime while progressing their careers.

Class Programs (ISEP, Faculty Led): ISEP (International Student Exchange Program) and Faculty Led programs, terms that have been lost over the past two years while travel was restricted. Virginia Tech faculty led programs are the f irst and more simple of the two. This program allows for students to go abroad with other Virginia Tech students and faculty to study pre-certif ied classes for transfer credits. The second program, ISEP (International Student Exchange Program), gives students more opportunities to travel to different countries through student exchange programs or direct enrollment of the foreign institutions. Through the exchange program, students f rom both institutions will trade spots at each other’s university to get the most out of their experience. The program allows students to directly enroll in the foregin institution and wait to be admitted that way. Third party study abroad options are available, but require more work to understand the transfer credits. Through these programs, students are able to go abroad once more and give students an international experience of study, work, or volunteering.

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On the Spain and Morocco track, students explored the famous Hassan Tower Mosque and the Chellah, ancient Roman ruins, and scenic gardens of Rabat.

Photo courtesy of Lisa Schibelius for Virginia Tech.

RSAP for Engineering Students (Rising Sophomore Abroad Program): Starting again following the Spring 2022 Semester, the RSAP has taken flight again. The faculty led engineering program is a two week international module following the conclusion of the spring semester to give students leadership and culture experience. Rising sophomores and f irst year transfer students had the opportunity to travel to Spain and Morocco, Ireland and the United Kingdom, and Italy and Germany. Many students had a positive response, calling it, “a way to get rid of personal biases” and “a pathway to hear other people’s stories to understand them”. Overall, the RSAP is a way to impact the development of future engineers.

International Internships (Rolls-Royce International Internship): If classes abroad weren’t exciting enough, students also have the opportunity to work abroad as well. Oftentimes, students would choose to intern abroad to expand their global network and an overall new experience. Fortunately, there is an ISEP program that will assist you in landing an internship abroad, virtually or in person. The most popular internship program Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia has to offer is the Rolls-Royce International Internship Program. The opportunity spans over the summer and gives major insight of how the top engineers work. It’s sad to say that it was not open for relocation this summer, so the interns who were chosen were relocated domestically for f ree by the program. In future years, it can be expected that the program will return for overseas relocation, and it is an opportunity that shouldn’t be overlooked.

NSF - National Science Foundation.

Found on Virginia Tech study abroad Website

International Research Experience for Students (IRES): An underlooked opportunity is international research abroad. Just like interning and taking classes, students have the opportunity to conduct research at another university and collaborate with their faculty on innovative research projects. Engineering research projects are fully funded through the National Science Foundation and include stipends for the ten to thirteen weeks the students conduct research.

Research abroad is highly encouraged because the process students undergo is necessary to, “the scholarly and artistic contribution to knowledge,” as stated by the Council on Undergraduate Research. The Fulbright Program is one of several scholarship opportunities to research abroad. Many of these scholarships push for the development of great researchers with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence around the world.

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What you need to know: With study abroad once again taking off, it is allowing more opportunities to experience different cultures while progressing their careers.

A lot of students get scared of studying abroad due to the costs, but there are many scholarship opportunities that are automatically considered for you on your FAFSA and college you are in. It is also important to note that Virginia Tech’s study abroad off ice keeps close watch over the events and outbreaks that happen in countries the school has programs in. Student and faculty safety has become a priority over the past few years when it comes to the topic of travel. Should an occasion rise where a study abroad experience is canceled, refunds are feasible to the payer. As the world returns to a normal state again, study abroad is projected to stay around after its two year hiatus.

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Teacher Spotlight Dr. Nicholas Polys Article /

Nidhi Chopdekar

Dr. Nicholas Polys. Picture by Ayat Mohammed

Who is Dr. Nicholas Polys?

Dr. Nicholas Polys is an Aff iliate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech and teaches classes that include Introduction to Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Media Computation, Graphics, GUI Programming, Information Visualization and Virtual Environments. He has also been recently appointed as Virginia Tech’s Health Sciences Faculty. Additionally, Dr. Polys is also the Director of Visual Computing with the Virginia Tech Research Computing Group and a member of Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society, and the Web3D Consortium.

Education: Dr. Polys did his B.A in the year 1996 in Cognitive Sciences f rom Vassar College followed by his Ph.D. in Computer Science f rom Virginia Tech in 2006. After his undergraduate research, he jumped into the networked information space of the WWW, developing audio, visual, and 3D assets and software. His doctoral work at Virginia Tech examined perceptual cues and layout behaviors for Information-Rich Virtual Environments for desktop to immersive platforms.

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Research Work: Dr. Nicholas Polys’s research comprises information and interaction architectures, particularly the Web3D ecosystem, human computer interaction, and usability engineering in virtual and augmented reality. He also focuses on the cognitive and graphical elements of 3D scientif ic visualization and medical imaging. Since 1998, Dr. Polys has been developing captivating interactive 3D visualization technologies. He describes his work as the Director of Visual Computing for Virginia Tech Advanced Research Computing (ARC) as an exciting blend of research, mentoring, managing high-performance visualization facilities, and creating web-based and immersive visualizations for the most recent computational science and e-Design applications. Since 1997, he has been creating interactive 3D graphics systems and content.

His main areas of interest in terms of study include the junction of visualization, virtual environments, and perception in the context of graphics and Human Computer Interaction. Furthermore, he is the co-author of the international standard (ISO) Extensible 3D (X3D), elected Director and President of the Web3D Consortium, and Chair of the Web3D User Interface Working Group.

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Recent Student Achievements: Dr. Polys indicated that at Virginia Tech, the faculty are constantly evolving the Computer Science curriculum that includes not just the special course topics (since computer technologies move so quickly), but also the course methods. Initiatives like ‘Hands-On, Minds-On’ and the Destination Areas have yielded rich-interdisciplinary collaborations and programs. He personally sees a huge variety of opportunities for students to engage in ‘authentic’ project-based learning and make a real impact. He stated, “This has always been true for my Graduate CS classes, but this past academic year we really got into it with the CS Senior HCI Capstone class.” He described the class project in further detail. Each student self-selected an ordered preference for the project challenges f rom the course menu and were then assigned to a project in groups of four. Each HCI challenge came f rom real research projects around the University. Each group ran the agile process of User-Centered design f rom requirements to design to prototype to evaluation.

The class presented their work at the VT Undergraduate Research Symposium for Computer Science (VTURCS) in the Commonwealth Ballroom in Squires, and all the groups pushed their projects forward with unique innovation.

The two projects that placed in the voting were: Narrating Places and Spatial Audio Designer. Briefly: Narrating Places is an accessibility concept that uses our computer vision and object detection Web service to translate 2D images and Web3D screenshots of visual scenes f rom the Web browser into audio narrations by various algorithms; here we focused on the interpretation of YOLO results into grammatical text and then into audible speech through WWW APIs. Spatial Audio Designer is an online 3D design environment that gives users interactive control over W3C WebAudio sound sources and parameters in a Web3D space. Sound sources can be moved and directed; here we studied the visual representation of sound on geometry in the environment (with a shader) and the sensitivity of manipulations with 3D drags and 2D parameter widgets.

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Opportunities for Students: Dr. Polys heads the Advanced Research Computing Visionarium at Virginia Tech that has various opportunities for students. The Visionarium’s focus is on supporting the adoption of supercomputing and visual analysis tools to advance science, engineering, and education. Its mission is to consult and collaborate with researchers to design, develop, and apply advanced visualization technology. In the Visionarium Lab, technology consulting and resources are provided for computational scientists, designers, and engineers to gain visual insight, collaborate, and publish interactive 3D graphics immersively and over the WWW. Having worked in the Visionarium myself, I would def initely say it is a great place to learn and explore. Dr. Polys has been very supportive and has guided me immensely throughout my time at the Visionarium.

He is extremely knowledgeable and is always encouraging his students.

“We invite you to come and learn how Virginia Tech’s world-class resources can catalyze your ideas” - Dr. Polys

Students at the Visionarium. Picture by Alex Parrish

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Hobbies Outside of School: “MUSIC IS A GREAT JOY AND A BIG PART OF MY LIFE” Dr. Polys plays the banjo and guitar. Additionally he sings and writes songs too. Along with his wife, he was in a Bluegrass band in New York for several years. When they moved down to Blacksburg, they fell in love with the Old-Time music crowd at the local jam session. This region has a rich and welcoming heritage of acoustic music. As he learnt the songs, dance and the people, his band, The Jugbusters, became a local and student favorite. Dr. Polys mentions that he still plays out several times a year. Furthermore, his psychedelic electric project, Timewave Zero, is playing regularly and still has a couple original members f rom the Grad School days. Besides those louder moments, Fly f ishing and boating around the New River watershed is how he explores and embraces the natural landscape around Blacksburg. He expresses how it lowers the blood pressure and he f inds many ‘Happy Places’.

“What is the most rewarding thing about your job?”

“I have to plead for two: First, being the f irst human to see the shape of a 350 million year old fossil or the newest image of flavors and forces inside a Hadron f rom a particle accelerator. Scientif ic Visualization is pretty cool. Curiosity’s favorite flavor is ‘Discovery’. Second, when you make a real connection with a student and it’s real enough that they are inspired to keep in touch or send you holiday cards updating you about their life adventures and successes. It helps me remember that the choices we make everyday - the words we say - in the classroom, impacts our culture and our students’ lives pretty directly. That is an honor and a privilege.”

“How did you decide on becoming a teacher?”

“It was never a decision really. I had teachers who got me excited about learning and solving problems; that curiosity and excitement is infectious I think - in a good way! Asking questions, troubleshooting, Discovery, making things work …Somehow it’s in the f iber of my being to share what I think I know and I had good enough teachers to be humble. What was a conscious decision was a personal goal to be a good teacher. That is, to really improve all the aspects by my measures. For example, one must master the mechanics needed to engage a large class, produce weekly insightful lectures and activities that meet learning objectives, work the Learning Management System to execute an equitable course - these are all necessary but to be a good teacher also includes recognizing each students’ gifts and meeting them with challenges that bring out their best.”

“Why Virginia Tech?”

“World-class academics, technology and wilderness, all in one location!

Ut Prosim!”

O-SHOW Article /

Adeline Ghosh

Design teams outside of Goodwin Hall. Picture by CEED

The Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Diversity (CEED) hosted O-Show at Goodwin Hall this year for the 8th year in a row! O-Show is a great event that allows STEM-related student organizations to showcase their opportunities to new students. This includes organizations like BOLT (design teams), SWE (engineering societies), and Engineers Forum Magazine (engineering related clubs).

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SWE booth inside of O-Show. Picture by SWE

IEEE booth inside of O-Show. Picture by CEED

The f irst time O-Show was hosted was back on August 14th, 2014. The event was created to give engineering students some time to get to know engineering organizations and upperclassmen in a more intimate setting. Gobbler Fest is usually the larger club fair that many of the same organizations would be a part of. However, it had been diff icult and overwhelming for f reshmen to be able to get into all of the engineering specif ic clubs that they were interested in. O-Show provided a place for them to be more comfortable and have the opportunity to network with other f reshmen and engineering faculty.

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Picture from the first O-Show hosted by CEED in 2014. Picture by CEED at Goodwin hall.

O-Show is a great opportunity for f reshmen since it gives them an exclusive opportunity to learn about clubs and what involvement in engineering at Virginia Tech can look like. The Hume center was also represented this year so this could help students jump start their experience by getting involved in research. “The Hume Center leads Virginia Tech’s research, education, and outreach programs focused on the challenges of cybersecurity, autonomy, and resilience for the national security community” (hume.vt.edu).

According to various f reshmen f rom Hoge Hall, the engineering living learning community, “O-Show introduced us to a lot of new opportunities. We like that it was held before classes started so that we could wholeheartedly participate in activities and get to know each other better without the stress of having homework or classes to go to.”

Hosting O-Show before classes was great timing for most students. It helped them network with each other so they may have some familiar faces in their new classes.

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Students bonding together by the Freedom First ice cream truck. Picture by CEED

On top of helping the f reshmen participants, O-Show also gave organizations a chance to recruit new members. Many clubs and teams lose long time members as seniors start to graduate so having O-Show is a great way to boost club engagement before some of the larger events like Gobbler Fest. Especially since Gobbler Fest isn’t until September. Design teams tend to have a lot stricter deadlines since they have competitions that they are looking to prepare for. This gives them a lot more incentive to start recruiting as soon as possible. While other clubs just want to expand their participation. Regardless, you won’t know what kind of club is best for you until you get involved! Many f reshmen engineering students feel like they don’t belong but many organizations work to make everyone feel included. Clubs like NSBE, SWE, and SHPE focus on specif ic minorities.

Although they are not limited to people who f it the minority, many students like that they have an opportunity to build a closer sense of community.

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Students gathered around various organization booths at O-Show 2022. Picture by CEED.

On that note, Engineers Forum Magazine is always recruiting new members so if you or a f riend are interested in writing, graphic design, or photography, reach out to us via our gobblerconnect page and we would be happy to have you!

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