2017 Swanson School of Engineering Annual Report

ANNUAL REPORT 2017

On behalf of the Swanson School of Engineering, I am pleased to share our 2017 annual report with you. As this is my final year as the U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering, I wanted to provide an even bigger snapshot of our faculty and student accomplishments in 2017. Each of our departments continues to excel and I am proud of the many successful stories you’ll read. As always, you can also find many more stories online at engineering.pitt.edu.

With respect to enrollment, research, fundraising and support, the Swanson School is in a tremendous place. We continue to rank among the top 25 public university engineering schools according to U.S. News & World Report, and it shows in the success of our students and alumni around the world. Their achievements are a testament to the dedication of our award-winning faculty, whom I am proud to call colleagues and collaborators in engineering education.

I have been honored to serve as Dean for more than two decades, and I know that my successor, Dr. James Martin II, currently the Bob Benmosche Professor and Chair of the Glenn Department of Civil Engineering at Clemson University, will take the Swanson School to even greater heights. As I return to the faculty in 2019, it will be exciting to watch the Swanson School’s evolution from a new perspective but its path could not be possible without the support of you and our many friends. Thanks for your dedication to more than 170 years of engineering excellence at the University of Pittsburgh.

Sincerely,

Gerald D. Holder U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering and Distinguished Service Professor

INSIDE Departments Bioengineering.........................................................................................................2 Chemical and Petroleum Engineering......................................................................6 Civil and Environmental Engineering.....................................................................10 Electrical and Computer Engineering.....................................................................14 Industrial Engineering............................................................................................18 Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science...................................................22 Office of Diversity......................................................................................................26 Sustainability Feature................................................................................................30 Distinguished Alumni Award.....................................................................................32 Faculty Awards...........................................................................................................34 Student Awards.........................................................................................................36 Statistics....................................................................................................................38

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

DESIGN

Paul Kovach Director of Marketing and Communications

Leslie Karon-Oswalt Senior Graphic Designer

MANAGING EDITOR

Matthew Cichowicz Communications Writer

Carey Anne Zucca Senior Executive Director of Development and Alumni Affairs

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The information printed in this document was accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of printing and is subject to change at any time at the University’s sole discretion.

The University of Pittsburgh is an affirmative action, equal opportunity institution. 06/2018

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY

John Altdorfer Ric Evans

BIOENGINEERING Kick-starting Commercialization The Coulter Translational Research Partners II Program awarded grants totaling $650,000 to six translational research teams.

$1.9 Million over 5 Years Bioengineering jumped from 18th in the nation to

12th overall, and remains at 6th among public AAU university programs in the 2018 U.S. News &

The NIH renewed funding for the Cardiovascular Bioengineering Training Program, which educates students who are interested in cardiovascular research and pursuing a PhD in bioengineering.

The new funded projects include a biomarker for identifying intracranial hemorrhage, a biosensor platform for detecting cardiac events, a drug delivery platform for preventing sexually transmitted infections, a device to improve viability of donor

World Report graduate rankings.

livers for transplantation, a novel peripheral IV placement catheter, and a significantly improved surgical retractor.

Taking a Deep Breath

Focusing on early stage medical technology, the

ALung Technologies, Inc., co-founded by Professor William Federspiel, received U.S. Food

Center for Medical Innovation awarded $65,000

and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of its Investigational Device Exemption to conduct a

in Round 1 Pilot Funding to three teams for a new

pivotal clinical trial of the Hemolung® Respiratory Assist System for the treatment of adults

technology for reducing risk of post-partum uterine

with severe acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The FDA’s

hemorrhage, a thermal device for inducing nerve block

approval makes ALung’s VENT-AVOID Trial the first trial of extracorporeal carbon dioxide

in pain control, and a system to improve transplanted

removal for treating patients with COPD exacerbations.

organ viability.

Understanding Addiction in the Adolescent Mind Several studies have provided strong evidence that adolescents – people in their teens to early twenties – have a higher vulnerability than adults to addictive substances like cocaine. To understand the origin of this age effect requires a sensor to effectively measuring how cocaine interacts with different parts of the brain over time. Xinyan Tracy Cui, the William Kepler Whiteford Professor of Bioengineering, and her research group developed a new method of using synthetic DNA called “aptamers” to view the effect of cocaine on the brain in real-time with a higher resolution than other techniques. Pictured with Dr. Cui is NTE Lab postdoc, Ian Mitchell Taylor.

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Wearing a New Coat The 2017 honorees for Forbes’ 30 Under 30 ranking of young innovators and visionaries included alumni Noah Snyder and Kasey Catt, founders of Interphase Materials, a coating and surface treatment startup.

The idea for their company started while Snyder and Catt were doctoral candidates in the Neural Tissue Engineering Lab under advisor Tracy Cui, William Kepler Whiteford Professor of Bioengineering.

Interphase Materials began promoting an industrial coating that protected pipelines, bridges and boats from contamination by marine life. However, they quickly found a large potential market in tube and pipe coatings used for cooling power plants, and attracted the attention of construction and manufacturing companies, but their reputation didn’t stop there. The United States Navy offered them a contract to develop coating solutions for nuclear submarines.

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A Bridge to Breathing Acute and chronic lung diseases are the most life-threatening causes of hospitalization and death among young children. This is especially true for children suffering from cystic fibrosis. The path to recovery often leads to a lung transplant, but the wait list for pediatric patients can last for months and require lengthy hospital stays anchored to large mechanical ventilators.

To safely bridge the time between diagnosis and transplant while allowing patient mobility, a research team led by Professor William J. Federspiel, is developing the Pittsburgh Pediatric Ambulatory Lung (P-PAL), a compact respiratory assist device for children that would replace traditional oxygenation methods as a bridge to transplant or recovery in children with lung failure.

The proposal, “Ambulatory Assist Lung for Children,” received a four-year, $2,357,508 R01 award from the National Institute of Health’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

Co-PIs are William R. Wagner, Director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Professor of Surgery, Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering at Pitt; and Peter D. Wearden, congenital cardiothoracic surgeon and Department Chair, Division of Cardiovascular Surgery, Department of Cardiovascular Services at the Nemours Children’s Health System, Orlando, Florida.

Illustration by Randal McKenzie

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Sending the Right Signals Assistant Professor Warren Ruder is developing microparticles that carry engineered bacteria known as ‘smart biomaterials.’ Supported by a $338,000 NSF award, Dr. Ruder will use the biomaterials to reprogram mammalian cell signaling. The goal is to use these hybrid, living-nonliving biomaterials to better understand how cell signaling works and influence cell behavior when a problem occurs.

The BodyExplorer Medical Simulator Bioengineering’s “BodyExplorer” project was exhibited at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. at the first annual ACCelerate: ACC Smithsonian Creativity and Innovation Festival, on October 13-15, 2017. A next-generation medical simulator developed by a multidisciplinary team at the Simulation and Medical Technology R&D Laboratory directed by Assistant Professor Joseph Samosky, BodyExplorer demonstrates advanced simulation-based healthcare training with augmented reality visualization, automated instruction, and real-time feedback for trainees. The project was one of three Pitt innovations selected for presentation to hundreds of visitors at the three-day celebration of creative exploration and research at the nexus of science, engineering, arts, and design, and organized

by Virginia Tech and the Smithsonian Museum’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. BodyExplorer also received a Best in Show Award in the Serious Games and Virtual Environments Showcase at the 2017 International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare (IMSH).

An Immune Response Assistant Professor Bryan Brown attracted more than $3 million in NIH funding to study the connection between the body’s immune system and the longevity of biomedical implants. One project builds on his previous research demonstrating that macrophage M1 and M2 polarization at early time points after the implantation of a biomedical material can predict long-term reactions by the host’s immune system.

The information gathered by the study could significantly improve the success of biomaterial implants and minimize the negative response from the patient’s immune system. His other funded research will be a first-of-its-kind exploration of how the process of human aging affects implants.

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CHEMICAL & PETROLEUM

Lindau Nobel Laureate PhD candidate Natalie Austin participated in the 67th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau, Germany, part of an elite group of international undergraduates, graduate students and post-doctoral

First at the Blast Furnace ChemE undergraduate Jared Raszewksi won the 2017 Blast Furnace experience.

A regular user of protein powders, Mr. Raszewski said he is was frustrated by the process

An Eye Towards Islets Associate Professor Ipsita Banerjee is leading an NSF-funded collaboration with Arizona State University and the University of Louisville to engineer pancreatic islets in the lab using human pluripotent

researchers who qualified for attendance after a

of measuring and mixing the protein drinks. His

multistage selection process.

solution, “DisSolves,” is a liquid mix in a naturally

system to create a three-dimensional

dissolving single-serve wrapper – a technology he

cell culture that mimics the way the

says can be adapted for other beverages. He

body creates natural pancreatic cells.

plans to use the $2,500 prize to prototype as he continues conducting customer discovery to refine

stem cells. The team will use a novel hydrogel

Pictured with Dr. Banerjee is PhD candidate Thomas Richardson.

his value proposition and go-to-market approach.

Emelyn Jaros, a mechanical engineering undergraduate, is his research collaborator.

“ Cellular” Biology

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White blood cells are like the “assassins” of systems biology. Some destroy viruses by swallowing them whole, others lie ready to sound the alarm with inflammation, while “natural killer” white blood cells hose down infected cells with a toxin that causes immediate cell death. The human immune system is an intense, fast-paced game of cat and mouse on a cellular level, and now the game can take place on a cell phone.

Jason Shoemaker, assistant professor, and Robert Gregg, a PhD candidate studying intercellular immunity in Dr. Shoemaker’s group, created the game “Vir-ed” – a virtual reality (VR) education game designed to teach new biology and biochemistry students about the human immune system. In Vir-ed (which rhymes with “wired”), players follow a storyline and a series of mini-games while learning how viruses invade host cells, the basic biological mechanisms associated with infection, and how human cells detect viruses. As the game begins, the immersive technology casts the player in the role of the virus, determined to avoid the predatory white blood cells and find a juicy red blood cell to infect.

Three Set New Department Milestone John Keith, Giannis Mpourmpakis and Christopher Wilmer, all assistant professors of chemical and petroleum engineering, received individual NSF CAREER awards which “recognize faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.” The three professors each received $500,000 in funding for the five-year awards.

Advancing Chemical Manufacturing The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) awarded the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering and Ohio specialty chemicals provider Lubrizol Corporation a collaborative grant for research into clean energy chemical manufacturing. The DOE grant, along with contributions from Pitt and Lubrizol, will total $7.5 million over a four-year period.

The grant is part of the DOE’s Rapid Advancement in Process Intensification Deployment (RAPID) initiative, a partnership between the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the DOE. Both Pitt and Lubrizol are among the 45 members of the $70 million AIChE/RAPID Initiative for improving energy efficiency and industrial productivity through process intensification and modular manufacturing – two design approaches for chemical manufacturing at industry-relevant scales.

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Pitt’s Newest NSF Center The National Science Foundation awarded $1.8 million to establish the NSF Center for Chemo-Mechanical Assembly (CCMA) at the Swanson School. Principal investigator is Anna Balazs, Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and the John A. Swanson Chair of Engineering. CCMA is part of the NSF Centers for Chemical Innovation (CCI) Program, which supports research centers focused on major, long-term fundamental chemical research challenges.

Controlling fluid flow at the micro- and nano-level can enable the development of self-operating microfluidic devices and even smallscale factories that perform chemical synthesis and biomedical assays, as well as drive robotic systems operating in harsh environments. CCMA’s focus will be to devise effective ways to regulate the movement of the fluids at such small, confined levels.

Potential applications for this research includes the creation of stand-alone microfluidic devices that autonomously perform multistage chemical reactions and assays for biomedical applications; automated materials assembly in harsh environments; and smallscale factories that can operate autonomously to build microscale components for use in fine instrumentation and robotic systems.

Dr. Balazs’ co-investigators include: Todd Emrick, Professor of Polymer Science & Engineering and Director of the NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) on Polymers at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst; Ayusman Sen, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at The Pennsylvania State University; Howard Stone, the Donald R. Dixon ’69 and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University

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In Search of a Greener Cleaner Molecular chelating agents are used in many areas ranging from laundry detergents, to paper pulp processing and precious metal refining but some, especially the most effective chelating agents, do not degrade in nature and may pollute the environment. With support from the National Science Foundation, Pitt researchers are developing machine-learning procedures to discover new chelating agents that are both effective and degradable.

John Keith, a Richard King Mellon Faculty Fellow in Energy and assistant professor of chemical and petroleum engineering, is principal investigator; and Eric Beckman, Distinguished Service Professor of Chemical Engineering and co-director of Pitt’s Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation, is co-PI. The results of the research will have a significant impact on a range of topics relevant to environmentally safe engineering and the control of metals in the environment.

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CIVIL & ENVIRONMENTAL Professor of the Year

Hooked on Aquaponics

The ASCE Pittsburgh Section named Assistant Professor Andrew Bunger Professor of the Year. The award committee selected Dr. Bunger for his excellence in teaching and contributions to professional guidance and development of civil engineering students by reinvigorating

The Aquaponics Project, an environmental engineering student group bent on sustainable urban farming, won the grand prize of $10,000 and a Ford Connect Transit Van at the 10th Annual Ford College Community Challenge. The Pitt-led team received an additional $25,000 for finishing in the top 10. The Aquaponics Project aims to spread awareness of how aquaponics can be used to produce healthy food, even in densely populated urban areas.

In 2016, the group debuted a two-story, 160-square foot shipping container capable of producing 10,000 pounds of food annually in an almost entirely closed-loop system.

Pitt’s geotechnical engineering program, among other criteria.

Aquaponics can produce 10 times the amount of food per square foot than traditional farming, while using 70 percent less energy and 90 percent less water. The Aquaponics Project’s facility currently produces basil and tilapia, but a variety of different plants and fish can be used. Founded at Pitt in 2015, the Aquaponics Project has grown to include students from Carnegie Mellon University and The University of Michigan.

Forbes 30 Under 30 Assistant Professor Hao Sun’s research into using advanced sensors with Internet-of-Things (IoT) connectivity and data analytics to monitor large structures earned him a spot on Forbes’ 2018 “30 Under 30” in Science list of young innovators and rising stars.

Dr. Sun, who joined the faculty in fall 2017, was also awarded an NSF CAREER award in 2017 while at MIT.

Pictured from left to right are Kareem Rabbat (Pitt), Catie Schrading (Pitt), Vinh Boa Luong (University of Michigan), Sasha Gwyn Cohen Ioannides (CMU), and Alexis Hoane (CMU).

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Designing Safer Carbon Nanomaterials Assistant Professor Leanne Gilbertson received an NSF award to study the inner workings of carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) and develop the best design practices that result in environmentally sustainable CNMs. While prized for their ability to detect, remove, or degrade contaminants in the environment, CNMs don’t simply disappear after they are used.

Dr. Gilbertson and her team will develop a framework to inform design of CNMs in a way that minimizes the potential for future unintended consequences.

This work is being pursued through controlled manipulation of surface chemistry coupled with biological and electrochemical activity testing. Once they have characterized their physiochemical properties, electrochemical properties, and the biological reactivity, they will apply statistical methods to identify correlations between specific CNM properties, function, and hazard. These correlations will be the key to unlocking new relationships that optimize the future design of CNMs.

Building a Better Sound Barrier Although it may not fit the traditional definition, acoustic noise is a form of pollution because of its negative impact on human health. Indoor-generated noise is especially a problem in the workplace, where noise can cause minor distractions or even mental stress. Thanks to an award from the National Science Foundation, Associate Professor Piervincenzo Rizzo is exploring fundamental new research that may lead to new sound barriers that mitigate acoustic noise.

Back-to-Back Champions

Acoustic diodes offer low resistance to sound in one direction and high resistance in the opposite direction, which cancels out sound transmission along one direction.

His hypothesis is that a diode, embedded in novel architectural material, can be scaled at multiple lengths to shield indoor noise and eventually transit-generated noise.

The American Society of Civil Engineers named Pitt’s student chapter as recipient of the Distinguished Chapter Award for Region 2. The Pitt chapter was also a returning finalist for the Robert Ridgway Student Chapter Award, given annually to the single most outstanding student chapter nationwide.

Pictured from left to right are Pitt ASCE chapter members Chaz Donnelly, Pete Eyre, Anna Thomas, Cameron Schmidt, and Connor Bassett.

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First LCA of Water Reuse Systems The “decentralized” water system at the Center for Sustainable Landscapes (CSL) at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, which treats all non-potable water on site, contributes to the net-zero building’s recognition as one of the greenest buildings in the world.

However, research into the efficacy of these systems versus traditional treatment is practically non-existent in the literature. Thanks to a collaboration between Phipps and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, researchers now have a greater understanding of the life cycle of water reuse systems designed for living buildings, from construction through day-to-day use.

The first-of-its-kind research utilizing life-cycle assessment (LCA), published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, is co-authored by Assistant Professor Melissa M. Bilec, deputy director of the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation, and Phipps collaborators Richard Piacentini, executive director, and Jason Wirick, director of facilities and sustainability management. Pitt PhD graduate student, Vaclav Hasik, and Pitt undergraduate, Naomi Anderson, were first and second authors, respectively.

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LCA scientifically analyzes the environmental impact of a product or process throughout the entire life cycle, from the materials used to build a system, to their transportation, construction, use, and, eventually, the estimated end of life. Although LCA has been used to compare centralized and decentralized water systems in different contexts, the Phipps CSL research is the first to consider both water supply and treatment at a comprehensive site or in the context of a net-zero energy/water building Pictured above is the Center for Sustainable Landscapes exterior with constructed wetlands and lagoon at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens.

Photo by Denmarsh Photography Inc. Inset: Diagram representing water circulation at the Phipps Center for Sustainable Landscapes. Reprinted with permission from “Evaluating the Life Cycle Environmental Benefits and Trade-Offs of Water Reuse Systems for Net-Zero Buildings,” Environmental Science & Technology. Copyright 2017, American Chemical Society.

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Building a Master’s Degree in Sustainable Engineering Answering a demand for professional programs that help students find sustainable solutions to regional and global engineering issues, Pitt approved a new Master of Science in Sustainable Engineering (MSSE) program. The major and professional degree will utilize a systems-based approach to help students identify and address complex environmental and socioeconomic problems.

Housed within the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation (MCSI) with the degree granted from the Swanson School of Engineering, the 30-credit MSSE integrates with nine current masters’ degree programs in engineering, and provides students the opportunity to complete two M.S. degree programs with a limited time increase. The MSSE curriculum combines an engineering technical formation with the study of sustainability from multiple perspectives such as business, policy and economics.

For more information, contact David Sanchez, Assistant Professor and MCSI Assistant Director for Education and Outreach at davidsanchez@pitt.edu or 412-624-9793.

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ELECTRICAL & COMPUTER IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu Welcomes New Inductees, Celebrates 80 Years Each year, the University of Pittsburgh Beta Delta Chapter of the IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu honor society sends out invitations to students in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department who have demonstrated academic excellence. New members rank in the upper one-fourth of their sophomore and junior classes, or in the upper one-third of their senior class. The 2017 cohort includes Ryan Becker, Shane Benning, Liam Berti, Kevin Gilboy, Benjamin Harper, Zachary Mattis, Brendan Schuster, David Skrovanek, Toby Sun, Robert Taylor, Dominic Tranchitella, Long Vo, Corey Weimann, and Roger Xue.

Amro El-Jaroudi Appointed Associate Chair Recognizing his significant career experience at the Swanson School of Engineering, Associate Professor Amro El-Jaroudi has been named Associate Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. In his role, Dr. El-Jaroudi will support the academic and research initiatives in the department, as well as help manage staff, programs, and resources.

The ‘Nobel Prize’ of Electronic Design Automation Rob A. Rutenbar, senior vice chancellor for Research at the University of Pittsburgh and faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was selected as the recipient of the 2017 Phil Kaufman Award for Distinguished Contributions to Electronic System Design. The award is presented yearly by the Electronic System Design Alliance (ESD Alliance) and the IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation (CEDA).Dr. Rutenbar is being honored for his pioneering contributions to algorithms and tools for analog and mixed-signal designs.

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Not actual RAS drone. Image via Shutterstock.

Pitt Students’ Autonomous Drone ‘Flies High’ at International Robotics Competition

A Better Way to Swallow Assistant Professor Ervin Sejdic’ received a National Science Foundation CAREER award to develop an improved screening method for dysphagia, which affects nearly one in 25 adults, especially the elderly and those who have suffered a stroke or neurological disease. A patient’s risk for dysphagia is first diagnosed by screening, and may require an endoscopy or fluoroscopy for further evaluation. However, some patients who aspirate do so silently, causing doctors to misdiagnose.

Two decades ago, the Georgia Tech Campus Recreation Center served as a swimming venue for the 1996 Summer Olympics. This past summer, the competitors weren’t battling with backstrokes or synchronized dives; instead they were waiting anxiously on the sidelines to see if their custom-built autonomous robot drones could herd a group of randomly-moving Roombas to one side of the floor while avoiding obstacles.

At the International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC) Mission 7 at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Pittsburgh Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) won Best System Design award and had the highest overall score out of 13 international teams present. The Best System Design award recognizes the overall design of the drone and its fitness for the mission, while points are awarded for flight performance and several static judging categories including a symposium presentation and a technical paper. The IARC Missions competition began in 1991, and each mission is repeated annually until it is successfully completed.

Tsinghua University completed Mission 6 in 2013, prompting the creation of Mission 7.

Mission 7 challenges teams to design and build a fully autonomous aerial vehicle capable of navigating through an indoor environment without landmarks. As the drone flies through the environment, ground robots move randomly around the floor. The main objective is for the drone to “herd” the ground robots across one side of an arena by touching them, while also avoiding moving obstacles.

Dr. Sejdic’ will study high-resolution vibration and sound recordings that would help doctors diagnose dysphagia and assist patients in improving how to properly swallow while eating or drinking. The award will enable him to collaborate with speech language pathologists and develop an online learning module to extend education and outreach throughout the U.S. Pictured from left to right are Pitt RAS team members Andrew Saba, Ritesh Misra, Aaron Miller (back), Garret Sultzbach (holding plaque), Levi Burner, and Elliot Miller.

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Blast Off! The National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for Space, Highperformance, and Resilient Computing (SHREC) celebrated its grand opening on September 18 with a ribbon cutting and tours of the facility at the Schenley Place building on the University of Pittsburgh Oakland campus.

The main research focus of SHREC is “missioncritical computing,” which includes space computing; high-performance computing and data analytics; and resilient computing to ensure computer dependability in harsh environments like space or the ocean floor.

SHREC expects to bring about $1 million in external research funding to Pitt each year and is funded by the NSF IndustryUniversity Cooperative Research Centers Program. Pitt is the lead institution of the national research center, and partners include Brigham Young University and University of Florida.

Image courtesy NASA

The SHREC team currently operates two experimental space processors deployed on the NASA International Space Station (ISS) and will add six more in late 2018 or early 2019. NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense deployed the first two processors as part of the Space Test Program – Houston 5 (STP-H5) payload in February.

“Pittsburgh provides an ideal setting to foster and support high-tech research collaboration between industry, academia, and government,” said Alan George, the Mickle Chair Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and founder of SHREC. Pictured from left to right at the SHREC ribbon cutting are Dean Gerald Holder, ECE Chair Alan George, and Senior Vice Chancellor Rob Rutenbar.

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Improving Nuclear Sensor Tech The United States Department of Energy (DOE) awarded Kevin Chen, the Paul E. Lego Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, $1.275 million for collaborative research that includes the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Reactor Laboratory, Westinghouse Electric Corporation, and the National Energy Technology Laboratory. The funds are part of $66 million awarded by DOE to advance innovative nuclear technologies.

Dr. Chen will lead the collaborative study to develop radiationhard, multi-functional, distributed fiber sensors, and sensorfused components that can be placed in a nuclear reactor core to improve safety and efficiency. The grant is from the Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET) program, part of the DOE’s Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP).

The research will focus on the fabrication of the optic sensors using additive manufacturing and advanced laser fabrication techniques.

The group will develop both high-temperature stable point sensors and distributed fiber sensors for high spatial resolution measurements in radiation-hardened silica and sapphire fibers, according to the funding report by the DOE. In 2014, Dr. Chen received a $987,000 NEET award to study high sensitivity, high accuracy sensor networks. These fiber optical sensor networks allow nuclear engineers to be much more responsive to problems in the nuclear power reactors and fuel cycle systems, increasing safety and reducing operating cost.

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INDUSTRIAL The Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers (IISE) named Bopaya Bidanda, the Ernest E. Roth Professor and Chair of the Department of Industrial Engineering, as the Outstanding Faculty Advisor for the Northeast Region.

“We honor [Dr. Bidanda] for his guidance and availability to chapter officers and chapter members, his participation at chapter

Industrial Engineering moved from 23rd in the nation to 17th overall, and from 13th to 10th among AAU publics in the 2018 U.S. News & World Report graduate rankings.

events, his interfacing for the chapter to the university and community, and his significant contributions to the IISE student chapter,” said Bill Boyd, Director of Membership Services at IISE.

IE hosted a welcome reception at The Andy Warhol Museum prior to the opening of the IISE Annual Conference and Expo, May 2017 in Pittsburgh.

Lisa Maillart Awarded Fulbright Scholarship to the Netherlands Professor Lisa Maillart was named a Fulbright Scholar to Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in the Netherlands. Through her Fulbright award, Dr. Maillart collaborated with researchers at TU/e on multiple projects related to maintenance optimization in healthcare, and taught a graduate course on Markov Decision Processes (MDPs).

Dr. Maillart’s research at TU/e was heavily driven by data supplied by the multinational Dutch electronics corporation Philips, which

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has a research facility headquartered in Eindhoven, Netherlands. She engaged with personnel from Philips Research and the faculty and students of Eindhoven University to gain a better understanding of smart maintenance approaches for healthcare systems and personalized health. Dr. Maillart also examined how new types of data can be analyzed to improve the decision making process for these complex problems.

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Pitt and UPMC Researchers Collaborate to Save More Organs for Transplants The National Institutes of Health awarded a four-year, $1.3 million R01 grant to a University of Pittsburgh research collaboration between the Department of Surgery and the Department of Industrial Engineering. The study titled “An Organ Perfusion Stent as an Alternative to Surgery in Donor Organ Recovery” will develop a dual chamber organ perfusion stent made of smart material to direct selective blood flow during transplant surgeries.

Leading the study are Principal Investigators Bryan W. Tillman, assistant professor in the Division of Vascular Surgery at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center; Youngjae Chun, associate professor of industrial engineering and bioengineering; and Sung Kwon Cho, associate professor of mechanical engineering and materials science.

Photo by Michael Drazdzinski/Pittwire

The stent will isolate visceral arteries – which supply blood to many major organs – without disturbing the heart. To make the stent, the research team will use a superelastic material with a flexible shape memory effect called nitinol, or nickel titanium.

Pictured from left to right are Sung Kwon Cho and Youngjae Chun with a stent prototype.

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Pitt IEs Collaborate with Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC to Reduce Emergency Room Wait Times One of the few places more nerve-wracking for a parent with a sick child than the emergency room is the waiting room outside the emergency room. Rushing to the hospital only to sit and wait can increase anxiety and worry, especially with new parents.

“I’ve seen firsthand some patients whose total time in the emergency department was quite long, and during our busiest times, three hours or more of their time was in the waiting room,” says Anna Svirsko, a third-year graduate student studying industrial engineering at Pitt.

Svirsko is part of a team of Swanson School students and faculty who partnered with Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC to create a “Wait Time Indicator” and help patients and their families in the Emergency Department (ED) at Children’s Hospital estimate when a doctor will be ready to see them. The indicator is part of a larger project to reduce overall patient length of stay in the ED. “The indicator uses the average wait time over the past hour and the number of people currently in the waiting room to predict how long it will take until the next exam room will open,” says Louis Luangkesorn, assistant professor and faculty advisor to the students working at Children’s Hospital. Dr. Luangkesorn and other members of the Industrial Engineering faculty started actively recruiting students from their classes to work at Children’s Hospital.

Over the past three years, about 15 to 20 students have been involved with projects aimed at reducing wait times, optimizing staff efficiency, increasing resource utilization and creating a better environment for patients.

The Pitt team also introduced new strategies to prepare the Children’s Hospital staff for the urgency of an emergency. They implemented the “5S” methodology for organizing equipment.

The “S-es” stand for “sort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain” and were originally part of a Japanese business principle that helped enable lean or “just-in-time” manufacturing.

“The Wait Time Indicator is just one project of many,” says Dr. Luangkesorn. “Children’s Hospital has decreased average time to rapid triage by almost 70 percent, getting the patients in most immediate need of attention more quickly in front of a doctor. We’ve reduced average length of stay for all patients over the past few years, too, and we expect to keep getting better as more students get involved.”

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Glass with Switchable Opacity Could Improve Solar Cells and LEDs Using nanoscale grass-like structures, researchers in the Department of Industrial Engineering have created glass that lets through a large amount of light while appearing hazy. This is the first time that glass has been made with such high levels of haze and light transmittance at the same time, a combination of properties that could help boost the performance of solar cells and LEDs. The glass exhibits another remarkable quality: it can be switched from hazy to clear by applying water. This could make it useful for creating smart windows that change haze or opacity to control the privacy of a room or to block glare from sunlight.

“Switchable glass available today is quite expensive because it uses transparent conducting layers to apply a voltage across the entire glass,” said Associate Professor Paul W. Leu, leader of the research team. “Our glass would be potentially less expensive to make because its opacity can be switched in a matter of seconds by simply applying or removing liquid.”

In Optica, The Optical Society’s journal for high impact research, the researchers describe their new nanograss-based glass, which achieves a record 95 percent light transmittance and a similarly high degree of haze at the same time. The researchers experimented with glass etched with nanograss structures from 0.8 to 8.5 microns in height with “blades” each measuring a few hundred nanometers in diameter. Working with Dr. Leu is graduate student Sajad Haghanifar.

Flat Glass

Nanograss Glass

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MECHANICAL & MATERIALS SCIENCE University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Patrick Gallagher and Provost Patricia Beeson presented Minking Chyu with a medallion recognizing his appointment as Distinguished Service Professor. “This is the highest recognition that our University can bestow upon a faculty member, and I am proud to celebrate Minking as one of these exceptional scholars,” Chancellor Gallagher said at the ceremony.

Dr. Chyu is the Leighton and Mary Orr Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Associate Dean of International Initiatives, and the inaugural Dean of the Sichuan University-Pittsburgh Institute (SCUPI) in China.

MEMS Senior Joanna R. Rivero was one of six recipients nationwide of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) annual USRA Scholarship Award. USRA awards scholarships to undergraduate students who tackle challenging scientific questions in the areas of space research and exploration,

Alumna Theresa (Terri) Taylor was recognized by

particularly astrophysics and astronomy and

the Society of Women Engineers with the Resnik

create technologies and solutions that will

Challenger Medal for “For advances in spacecraft

positively influence people’s lives.

momentum control systems; for setting high standards for critical parts and systems; and for establishing a world-class testing lab for bearings used in spacecraft.” Ms. Taylor, senior engineering manager for Honeywell Aerospace, earned her bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from the Swanson School of Engineering in 1982.

MEMS Assistant Professor Matthew Barry (left) with Ms. Rivero and Distinguished Professor Peyman Givi.

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Man(ufacturing) of Steel The advantages of additive manufacturing (AM) – from building complex structures for specific environments to repairing damaged components – continue to be grow as the technology matures. However, there has been limited research in developing new metals and alloys that would further enhance AM processes. Thanks to a three-year, $449,000 award from the Office of Naval Research (ONR), MEMS Assistant Professor Wei Xiong will explore next-generation metals, especially steel, for use in additive manufacturing.

The research, “Integrated Computational Materials Design for Additive Manufacturing of High-Strength Steels used in Naval Environments,” includes Susheng Tan as the senior personnel supporting materials microstructure characterization and corrosion tests. Funding is provided by the ONR Additive Manufacturing Alloys for Naval Environments (AMANE) program to design, develop and optimize new metallic alloy compositions for AM that are resistant to the effects of the Naval/maritime environment.

In particular, the Physical Metallurgy and Materials Design Laboratory led by Dr. Xiong will design a new type of high-strength, lowalloy steel, which can be widely used in naval construction. The ONR proposal’s objective is for the Pitt researchers to apply the Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) tools to design both the composition of these allows and the direct metal laser sintering process, which is used in AM to fuse the metal powders into components. The research will also focus on post-process optimization, which can further improve the mechanical properties and corrosion resistance of these specialty steels.

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Printing a Better Actuator,

Actually

One technology uses magnetic fields to generate mechanical work. The other enhances the magnetic properties of 3D-printed materials. Combined, they could lead to efficient, economical production of magnetic actuators used in everything from sensors, robotics, and mechanical devices to power generation. An award from the National Science Foundation has researchers playing matchmaker to determine if this magnetic union will attract or repel.

magnetic field. This natural shape-memory effect can also act as the power source, which is very beneficial for designing small parts without heavy onboard batteries or devices that need to be operated remotely.

Though they may be convenient, they’re also expensive.

“Currently, the best performing magnetic shape-memory alloys are made out of single crystals,” explains Dr. Chmielus. “These single crystals are rather difficult and costly to make.

With magnetic-field-enhanced binder jetting, we aim to improve the properties of magnetic shape-memory alloys that are not single crystals but made out of powder, so that they reach near single crystal properties.”

The NSF awarded Assistant Professor Markus Chmielus $296,169 to explore how magnetically-enhanced binder jet printing affects the microstructure and properties of magnetic shape-memory alloys.

Dr. Steven Ludwick, who works at motioncontrol product manufacturer Aerotech in Pittsburgh, is co-PI.

The study, “GOALI: From Powder to Functional Actuators: Binder Jet Printing of Magnetic Shape Memory Alloys,” is part of the NSF Grant Opportunities for Academic Liason with Industry (GOALI) program, which encourages interaction between academic research institutions and industry.

Magnetic shape-memory actuators naturally change shape in the presence of a changing magnetic field. The actuator will remain in its shape when the field is removed but can be reversed by changing the direction of the

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A Sticky Situation The smaller the object, especially at the atomic or subatomic level, the stranger it behaves. For example, as technological devices become smaller and smaller, the even smaller parts are more prone to adhesion or “stickiness.” When small-size parts come into contact, they spontaneously stick together and cannot easily be pulled apart.

However, recent research at the Swanson School may “unstick” the problem and improve the next generation of microdevices increasingly used in everyday life.

“Surfaces tend to attract each other via electronic or chemical interactions,” says Assistant Professor Tevis Jacobs. “This is particularly problematic as things become small. You can see this when you grind coffee. The whole beans don’t stick to the side of the grinder, but a fine grind will stick to everything, especially on a dry day.”

Dr. Jacobs is the principal investigator for the study “Understanding and Leveraging the Effect of Nanoscale Roughness on Macroscale Adhesion,” which received $305,123 from the National Science Foundation to measure surface roughness and characterize the fundamental relationship between adhesion and roughness at small sizes. Dr. Jacobs and his team will determine when tiny objects prefer to stick together.

Pictured from left to right are undergraduate Katerina Kimes (sitting), Professor Tevis Jacobs, undergraduate Cameron Kisailus, and PhD candidate Abhijeet Gujrati looking at a map of surface topography.

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OFFICE OF DIVERSIT Y

Pictured from left to right are Jennifer Iriti, Lori Delale-O’Connor, David Boone, Alaine Allen, and Alison Slinskey Legg.

Five-School Pitt Collaboration Earns NSF Grant to Promote Inclusion in STEM Fields 26

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The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded $300,000 to a University of Pittsburgh team in one of the foundation’s Ten Big ideas for Future Investments programs, “Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science (INCLUDES).” The team’s two-year pilot project, “Diversifying Access to Urban Universities for Students in STEM Fields,” is a credentialing and badging system for pre-college science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) programs with the ultimate goal of increasing participation of underserved and underrepresented minority students in postsecondary STEM programs, leading to STEM careers.

INCLUDES is an agency-wide initiative “aimed at enhancing U.S. leadership in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics discoveries and innovations through a commitment to diversity and inclusion,” according to the NSF website. The grant period began September 15, 2017 and continues through August 31, 2019.

The Pitt collaboration will expand upon a community engagement framework to involve more students in STEM pre-college programs and define how the programs teach students the competencies that promote success in STEM majors. This will inform the credentialing of pre-college programs and, in coordination with University admissions professionals, develop a badging system that holistically reviews student applicants.

The collaboration includes the Pitt Office of Admissions and Financial Aid, the Pitt Community Engagement Centers, Pittsburgh

Public Schools, Remake Learning, five schools at Pitt, and four campus STEM pre-college programs: • Gene Team in the Department of Biological Sciences; • INVESTING NOW in the Swanson School of Engineering; • The Technology Leadership Initiative in the School of Computing and Information; • The University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute Academy in the School of Medicine.

The four pre-college programs will engage approximately 300 high school students during the pilot round. The two-fold approach of credentialing STEM pre-college programs and badging student participants aims to have an impact on increasing the visibility of underserved and underrepresented minorities for admission considerations at urban research universities. Although Pitt is providing much of the initial effort for this project, the pilot is embedded within the broader Pittsburgh Regional STEM Ecosystem and is guided by the Remake Learning Network.

Boards, and determine whether the piloted model is feasible for expansion at their home institutions. The pilot will lay the foundation for a future alliance effort in which activities are replicated in other urban areas nationally.

The investigators include: • Alison Slinskey Legg (principal investigator), Senior Lecturer and Director of Outreach Programs in the Department of Biological Sciences;

Ultimately, the group’s change effort will result in an urban transformation in which previously “siloed” programs and organizations will take collective ownership and action to create stronger pathways for underrepresented minority students to enter STEM undergraduate programs in the region.

Faculty and administrators from Carnegie Mellon University and Duquesne University are included in the development and design efforts of the proposal, and will provide feedback on their precollege and admissions processes, participate on the Advisory

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• Alaine Allen, Director of INVESTING NOW pre-college diversity program and Pitt EXCEL undergraduate diversity program in the Swanson School of Engineering; • David Boone, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics; • Lori Delale-O’Connor, Assistant Professor of Education in Pitt’s Center for Urban Education; • Jennifer Iriti, Research Scientist in Pitt’s Learning Research & Development Center.

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NAMEPA Recognizes Swanson School’s Commitment to

Diversity in Engineering 28

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The National Association of Multicultural Engineering Program Advocates (NAMEPA) awarded both the Swanson School of Engineering’s Simeon Saunders and the INVESTING NOW program for outstanding contributions to the recruitment and retention of historically underrepresented groups pursuing education in engineering. Saunders received the NAMEPA Wings to Succeed Award, and INVESTING NOW received the NAMEPA Recruitment Award at the 38th Annual NAMEPA National Conference, which took place from September 10 – 13 on the Virginia Tech campus.

Saunders is an academic counselor and Coordinator for Diversity Outreach for the Pitt EXCEL Program, which annually provides more than 250 students – particularly historically underrepresented groups in engineering – with academic counseling, peer mentoring, tutoring, engineering research opportunities, graduate school preparation, and career development workshops.

NAMEPA grants the Wings to Succeed Award to people who have helped students overcome historic barriers for minority groups or who have met the challenges of their positions and committed extraordinary effort to fulfilling their job responsibilities. The award usually goes to non-traditional diversity roles, such as faculty, corporate representatives, community organizers, and other university administrators.

Saunders received his bachelor’s degree in political science and master’s degree in higher education management from Pitt. He is currently working toward his doctorate in social and comparative analysis in education.

In 2010, Saunders joined the Pitt EXCEL team and created the male mentoring group B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. (Brothers Respecting Open Thought Helping Every-Man Realize His Own Original Dream). The group offers opportunities for upperclassmen and alumni to participate in local community service activities, workshops, seminars, social outings, and peer to peer mentoring opportunities.

Since 1988, INVESTING NOW has prepared pre-college students from historically underrepresented groups for matriculation at selective colleges and universities, in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors. Approximately 175 students participate annually in INVESTING NOW activities, which include advising sessions, tutoring, hands-on science and engineering workshops, college planning sessions, and career awareness activities.

The primary goals are:

NAMEPA grants the Recruitment Program Award to programs that have engaged minority student populations in engineering. Over the past three decades, not only have 100 percent of INVESTING NOW students graduated from high school, but a minimum of 94 percent of INVESTING NOW graduates have made the transition to college, including 100 percent in 2016 and 97 percent in 2017 – with more than 50 percent of both groups entering college as STEM majors.

1. Create a pipeline for well-prepared students to enter college and pursue science, technology, engineering, and math majors.

2. Encourage and support students’ enrollment and achievement in advanced mathematics and science courses.

The INVESTING NOW team at Pitt includes: Dr. Alaine M. Allen, Director of INVESTING NOW, pre-college STEM diversity program and Pitt EXCEL, undergraduate engineering diversity program; Linda Demoise, Academic Support Coordinator for INVESTING NOW and Pitt EXCEL; Emiola Jay Oriola, Associate Director for INVESTING NOW; and Heather Mordecki, Office Coordinator for INVESTING NOW and Pitt EXCEL.

3. Ensure that the participants make informed college choices.

4. Support and encourage parents in their role as advocates for their children.

5. Coordinate partnerships between the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering and local schools.

Pictured on opposite page from left are students Alex Horn and Jann Grovogui.

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of Bicycles and Glaciers Naomi Anderson, first graduate of Pitt’s new Environmental Engineering major, “excited to serve Pittsburgh” Driven by passions for water conservation and bicycling, Naomi Anderson has studied artificial glaciers in the Himalayas, helped to launch a campus bicycle cooperative and designed prize-winning solutions to mitigate abandoned mine drainage in the South Hills.

In addition to these highlights of her five years as an undergraduate in the Swanson School of Engineering, Anderson has coordinated sustainability projects on and around campus and pedaled with friends to Washington, D.C., on the Great Allegheny Passage trail – twice.

Anderson, who graduated in 2017, is one of the first two students to receive the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering’s new bachelor of science degree in environmental engineering.

It’s a degree she wants to use here in Pittsburgh. A graduate of Pittsburgh Allderdice High School, she grew up in the city’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood. Her parents – Stewart Anderson, a faculty member in Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health, and Deb Anderson, a business analyst at Grant Street Group – recognized early on her affinity for hands-on problem solving.

They nudged, gently. “‘You have an engineering brain,’ they’d say. They would always come to me to fix things,” Anderson recalls.

When she arrived at Pitt, her preference for hands-on solutions made her choice of an engineering discipline easy: “It was civil or nothing,” she says.

But her path there wasn’t all smooth. A required course in concrete structures had Anderson in an unhappy spot. “I was thinking, ‘I can’t do this major anymore,’” she says, admitting she considered leaving engineering.

Anderson’s adviser, Leonard Casson, encouraged her instead to consider switching to the brand new environmental engineering major, which she did early in her final school year.

“Everything came together at the right time,” Casson says.

Anderson is exactly the sort of student the department had in mind when it created the new major, says Casson, associate professor and the department’s academic coordinator.

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“With her intellect, she’s capable of doing anything,” he says of Anderson.

Summer experiences with a Student Conservation Association trail crew that worked to correct water drainage on forest trails in Vermont sent her along the path to environmental engineering.

“It was cool to build something I could immediately see, helping nature,” she says.

Her interest in water resources led her to the topic of artificial glaciers, and a resulting freshman research paper on the subject got the attention of a University of Massachusetts Amherst researcher who invited Anderson and her coauthor, fellow Pitt engineering student Taylor Shippling, to join her in the mountains of northern India to research the structures up close.

Summers there are short, so farmers need melt water from glaciers to arrive at just the right time in the planting season if their crops are to succeed. As the glaciers recede, water takes longer to flow from higher on the mountain.

To remedy the problem, engineers there have built structures to trap the melting water at lower altitudes, where it freezes in an ice dam and later melts at the expected time.

“It was sweet to go to India,” says Anderson, who blogged with Shippling during their time in the province of Ladakh.

“It was interesting learning about the technology – and to do so in a way that’s not like westerners traveling abroad to fix problems in the third world, but rather to learn,” Anderson says, not only about hydrology, but also from the local experts and their solutions.

In 2015, she joined with friends to found the Pitt Bicycle Collective to support the campus cycling community.

The collective’s proposal to create a bike repair space in the Posvar Hall underpass won the $10,000 top prize in the 2017 Sustainable Solutions competition on campus. The Bike Cave will launch before fall, she says.

Gena Kovalcik, codirector of the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation (MCSI), grew to know Anderson as both passionate and prepared in her proposals when seeking funding for sustainability-related projects.

MCSI summer research funding contributed to the paper that led to Anderson’s journey to India. The center also provided some matching funds for ESW projects and the Bike Cave, Kovalcik says.

“Hers were more than just lofty ideas. Every time she’d come into my office, I knew she had a plan. It was always well thought out and thorough. She came in with a budget and a strategy to make it happen. I’m so excited to see what she does next,” Kovalcik says.

After graduation, Anderson and her mom embarked on a road trip to her next destination: Colorado, where she spent four months as part of a Southwest Conservation Corps trail maintenance crew in the Four Corners region.

Back in Pittsburgh, she plans to settle in Lawrenceville and seek a job involving water resources.

“I want to be here. I think Pittsburgh needs people who care,” she says.

“I’ve served Pitt. Now I’m excited to serve Pittsburgh.”

This article, “Graduating Senior Profiles: Naomi Anderson,” originally appeared in the May 4, 2017 issue of . Author: Kimberly K. Barlow. Reprinted with permission.

Elsewhere beyond the classroom, as president of Pitt’s chapter of Engineers for a Sustainable World, Anderson coordinated projects to winterize students’ homes; to test the potential of wind belts, which are flapping straps that can generate power; and to create a rain garden in conjunction with an Oakland community group.

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DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARD

Wanda M. Austin PhD, MSCE ‘77, MS Math ‘77

Donna G. Blackmond PhD, BSCHE ’80, MSCHE ‘81 Mark DiSilvestro MSBEG ’99, PhD BIOE ‘00

Michael Flowers MSCE ‘78

John Richter BSIE ‘75

Vibha Rustagi BSEE ‘87

Jay Nunamaker, Jr. PhD, BSME ’60, MSIE ‘66

Wanda M. Austin (MSCE ’77, MS Math ’77) “It felt like I had finally found my calling; through the help of my parents, my teachers, and my colleagues, I finally knew what I wanted to be when I “grew up,” and I was already doing it. I wanted to lead.”

– Wanda Austin, from Making Space: Strategic Leadership for a Complex World

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Thirty-eight years after her first day working for The Aerospace Corporation as a systems engineer, Wanda M. Austin retired as Chief Executive Office of the $973 million organization. She managed more than 3,900 employees and became renowned for her expertise in payload system acquisition, systems engineering, and system simulation. Despite her stellar reputation, Dr. Austin remains incredibly down to earth.

She attributes much of her career success simply to a fondness of math in school: “I wouldn’t say math came easy,” she admits, “but I like that the answers were straightforward. You were either correct or incorrect. That’s it.” Growing up in a poor neighborhood in the Bronx, Dr. Austin found comfort in the certainty of math amid an oftenuncertain world.

Her mother was a nurse, and her father was a barber. Her family lived in an apartment above the barbershop where her dad worked.

The building had barred windows because of neighborhood crime, the water didn’t work, and heat was “sometimes there, sometimes it wasn’t,” Dr. Austin explains. When her family moved to the housing projects, she was happy because “that was a significant improvement from where we had been.”

Dr. Austin graduated from Bronx High School of Science in 1971 and received a scholarship to attend Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa. Her hard work – catching three buses to and from school every day, working full time every summer, and working part time during the school year – met with reward. She was the first person in her family to attend college, and Dr. Austin credits that achievement to “having parents that valued education.”

After earning a bachelor’s degree in 1975, Dr. Austin’s love of math, and a suggestion from a college advisor, led her to pursue a postgraduate education at the University of Pittsburgh. She began studying mathematics and found herself tutoring many engineering

students in the subject. When she learned engineers make more money than mathematicians, she decided to take some engineering classes. “Engineering sounded more fun too,” she adds. In 1977, Dr. Austin graduated from Pitt with master’s degrees in both mathematics and systems engineering.

After climbing several more rungs of the corporate ladder, The Aerospace Corporation Board of Trustees unanimously elected Dr. Austin president and CEO in 2008. She helped shaped the future of the industry through her leadership and prominent advisory positions with former President Barack Obama’s Review of Human Spaceflight Plans Committee in 2009, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Science Board in 2010, and the NASA Advisory Council in 2014. She retired from The Aerospace Corporation in 2016.

Prompted by a job opportunity – and not at all by the weather, she assures – Dr. Austin moved to southern California to work as a member of the technical staff in missile systems with Rockwell International. She remained at Rockwell for 18 months before changing jobs. In 1979, Dr. Austin began her nearly four-decade relationship with The Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit research and development center with strong ties to the National Security Space programs.

Throughout her life, Dr. Austin has worked to promote the value and importance of a STEM education. She led The Aerospace Corporation’s participation in programs such as MathCounts and US First Robotics. She was one of the first CEOs in the nation to support the Change the Equation program. In 2016, she authored “Making Space: Strategic Leadership for a Complex World.” The book draws from her experiences during the decades-long journey as an engineer and executive to teach others how to lead.

She worked directly with the U.S. Air Force on satellite communications systems and programs. She did well enough that the company awarded her an advanced study grant, and Dr. Austin graduated from the University of Southern California in 1988 with a doctorate in systems engineering. Dr. Austin rose through the ranks at The Aerospace Corporation from General Manager of the Electronics Systems Division to General Manager of the Military Satellite Communications Division. Throughout her career, she continued to work closely with the Air Force on the MILSATCOM (Military Satellite Communications Systems Directorate) programs and saw extraordinary changes in space technology and the aerospace industry along the way.

“I really try to encourage people not to wait to lead in their personal and professional lives,” she says.

“You don’t need to be a CEO or have a professional title to start leading in your life right now.”

Dr. Austin plans to use her retirement to help decision-makers understand topics in aerospace, teach people about the value of STEM education and careers, and lead others through her positions on the Board of Directors at Amgen and Chevron Corporation and on the Board of Trustees for the University of Southern California.

“When I started in the business, only the government was building space systems because it was hard, it was expensive, and no one was sure if there was ever going to be a commercial market for it,” Dr. Austin says. “I watched GPS technology, weather prediction services, and even space tourism become mainstream concepts throughout my career.

The entire way ‘space’ is viewed by the public has shifted dramatically.”

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“A lot of people helped me throughout my life, and I want to help others any way I can,” Dr. Austin says.

Photos by Emily O’Donnell

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AWARDS Faculty Awards CARNEGIE SCIENCE AWARDS

CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

Kevin Chen, Innovation in Energy Award Peyman Givi, Honorable Mention, University/Post-Secondary Educator

Andrew Bunger, ASCE Pittsburgh Section Professor of the Year

Alex Jones, Information Technology Award

Leanne Gilbertson Oak Ridge Associated Universities Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award

BIOENGINEERING William Federspiel, elected to the Education Board at the American Health Council George Stetten, University of Pittsburgh Innovation Challenge (PInCh)

Hao Sun, Forbes 30 Under 30 in Science

Taryn Bayles, Fellow, AIChE

ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING

John Keith, Royal Society of Chemistry Journal of Materials Chemistry A Emerging Investigator James McKone and Christopher Wilmer, named Fellows among 58 early-career researchers at the Scialog: Advanced Energy Storage, Research Corporation for Science Advancement Robert Parker, James Pommersheim Award for Excellence in Teaching, and Swanson School of Engineering Board of Visitors Award Christopher Wilmer AIChE Young Investigator Award for Modeling and Simulation

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Natasa Miskov-Zivanov, Best Paper Award, 3rd International Conference on Machine Learning, Optimization & Big Data (with Adam Butchy, Bioengineering PhD student, Khaled Sayed, ECE PhD student, and Cheryl Telmer, research biologist at the Carnegie Mellon University Biological Sciences and the Molecular Biosensor and Imaging Center) Rob A. Rutenbar, Electronic System Design Alliance and IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation Phil Kaufman Award Ervin Sejdic’, Area Editor, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine

Inaugural Fellow, Foresight Institute

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Kent Harries, Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professorship at the University of Bath Piervincenzo Rizzo, Outstanding Paper in Materials Evaluation Award, American Society for Nondestructive Testing

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3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award

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INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING

TRANSITIONS

Mostafa Bedewy, Oak Ridge Associated Universities Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award

Bioengineering

Industrial Engineering

Kurt Beschorner, Research Assistant Professor to Associate Professor

Mary Besterfield-Sacre, appointed as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs

Bopaya Bidanda, IISE Outstanding Faculty Advisor award for the Northeast Region (New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware)

Lance Davison, Associate to Full Professor Richard Debski, Associate to Full Professor

Youngjae Chun, Assistant to Associate Professor with Tenure

Neeraj Gandhi, Associate to Full Professor

Lisa Maillart, Associate to Full Professor

Joel Haight, American Society of Safety Engineers President’s Award

Chemical and Petroleum Engineering

Lisa Maillart Fulbright Scholarship IISE Best Paper award for “Optimal pinging frequencies in the search for an immobile beacon” (co-authors include former Pitt faculty member Andrew Schaefer and former Pitt graduate student David Eckman.

DOI: 10.1080/0740817X.2015.1110270) Harvey Wolfe, professor and chair emeritus, IISE Frank and Lillian Gilbreth Award Industrial Engineering Award

Oleg Prokopyev, Associate to Full Professor

Anna Balazs, appointed as the John A. Swanson Endowed Chair in Engineering

Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science

Taryn Bayles, appointed as Vice Chair for Undergraduate Education

Minking Chyu, appointed University of Pittsburgh Distinguished Service Professor

Lei Li, Assistant to Associate Professor with Tenure Robert Parker, appointed as Vice Chair for Graduate Education Civil and Environmental Engineering Vikas Khanna, Assistant to Associate Professor with Tenure Electrical and Computer Engineering Samuel Dickerson, appointed as Associate Director of the Computer Engineering program Amro El-Jaroudi, appointed as Associate Department Chair Alexander K. Jones, Associate to Full Professor and Associate Director, NSF Center for Space, High-Performance, and Resilient Computing Ervin Sejdic’, Assistant to Associate Professor with Tenure Susheng Tan, Research Assistant to Research Associate Professor Jun Yang, Associate to Full Professor

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AWARDS Student Awards INTERDISCIPLINARY Ford College Community Challenge Grand Prize Pitt Aquaponics Project: Alexis Hoane (CMU), Sasha Gwyn Cohen Ioannides (CMU), Vinh Boa Luong (Pitt/University of Michigan), Kareem Rabbat (Pitt), Catie Schrading (Pitt) International Aerial Robotics Competition Mission 7 University of Pittsburgh Robotics and Automation Society

Second Place: Common Sense Megan Cala and Jenna Gustafson, ChemE PhD students Third Place: Ghost Trekkers Mackenzie Coates (A&S), Ev Durazo (GSPIA), Zhengjia Fu (A&S), and Sridhar Velagala (ECE)

International Ergonomics Design Competition 2nd Place: Sean Callaghan (IE), Rip Rucker (IE), Lauren Czerniak (IE), and Connor Bomba (IE)

Princeton University TigerLaunch Finals First Place: Aeronics (Blake Dube, ChemE; Alec Kaija, ChemE; Mark Spitz, Education)

Honorable Mention: Katelyn Axman (BioE), James Oosten (BioE), and Matt Astbury (BioE)

Christopher Mahoney, bioengineering PhD candidate, TERMIS-AM Student Scientist award

BIOENGINEERING

Honorable Mention: Tom Kramer (IE), Aster Chmielewski (IE), Chris Herrick (IE), and Mackenzie Cavanaugh (IE) Honorable Mention: Jack Clark (ChemE), Charlie Gates (IE), and Matt Jones (Psy) Honorable Mention: Evan Poska (IE), Matt Hoge (IE), and Chris C.J. Luther (IE) Pitt Blast Furnace First Place: Jared Raszewski (ChemE) and Emelyn Jaros (MEMS) Pitt Innovation Challenge (PInCh) Ameya Nanivadekar, (BioE PhD student) and Dr. Lee Fisher, assistant professor, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

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Pitt Startup Blitz First Place: Maternal Assistance Michelle Pressly (ChemE), Kutay Sezginel (ChemE), Alex Wallace (MEMS), and Toby Sheung (Neuroscience)

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Douglas Nelson Jr. and BodyExplorer (advisor: Joseph Samosky), Best in Show, Serious Games and Virtual Environments Showcase, International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare Puneeth Shridhar Audience Award for “Rescue Stent,” Society for Biomaterials 2017 Business Plan Competition Honorable Mention for “Rescue Stent,” Society of Biomaterials Student Travel Achievement Recognition (STAR) Award

CHEMICAL AND PETROLEUM ENGINEERING

Edwin Hasis, 2017 Peter J. Mascaro Fellow in Construction Management

Travis La Fleur, Stephen Provencher, Timothy Shearer and David Ulam, InnoCentive Challenge Award (Advisor: Christopher Wilmer)

Lisa Stabryla Carson Scholars Fund Hall of Fame

Natalie Austin, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Kendra LaVallee (Mascaro Scholar), Second Place, Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation Undergraduate Research Symposium

Noah Kaib, Material Handling Education Foundation, Inc. Hanel Storage Systems Honor Scholarship

Department of Defense National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship

Jennifer Lundahl, IISE Harold and Inge Marcus Scholarship Victoria Portier, IISE Henry and Elisabeth Kroeze Memorial Scholarship

ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING

Angela Leo (Covestro Scholar), First Place, Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation Undergraduate Research Symposium

IEEE Student Chapter, IEEE Region 2 Student Activities Conference First Place: Pico Conference Paper Competition: Kendra Farrell

CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

First Place: Micromouse Competition: Alex Glyde, Michael Hermenault, Ryan Matthews, Andrew Saba

ASCE Student Chapter, Distinguished Chapter Award for ASCE Region 2 and finalist, Robert Ridgeway Student Chapter Award

Third Place: Brown Bag Circuit Design Competition: Brandon Contino, Jenna Delozier, and Demetri Khoury

Constructors Association of Western Pennsylvania Student Estimating Competition Panther Estimators – First Place • Thomas Tresky (captain) • Lee Anderson • Matt Lane • Janet D’Anna • Hannah Schell

Randall Family Big Idea Competition Second Place: Airborne Laser (Shuo Li, Aidong Yan and Ran Zou)

Team Abbey – Third Place • Jon Abbey (captain) • Katelyn McEneaney • Andrew James • Phillip Paulone • Charles Riddle • Matt Eastburn

INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING

Julie Shields, Material Handling Education Foundation, Inc. Howard Bernstein Scholarship worth $2,000 MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AND MATERIALS SCIENCE Alyssa A. Brown, Universities Space Research Association Honorable Mention Lin Cheng, Best Poster, RAPID +TCT additive manufacturing conference Emily Cimino, Department of Defense National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship Laura Fulton, Best Poster Award, International Conference on Thermoelectrics

Best Video: Root (Christopher Colucci, Kevin Householder, and Matthew Yurko) Nathan Carnovale, IEEE PES Scholarship Plus Award

Emily Kistler, Best Poster Award, Gordon Research Seminar on High Temperature Corrosion

Sean Justice, Swanson School of Engineering Co-op Student of the Year

Joanna R. Rivero, Universities Space Research Association Scholarship Award

Corey Weimann, IEEE PES Region 2 Outstanding Scholar

Erica Stevens, Department of Defense National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship

SWANSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

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ANNUAL REPORT

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2017 STATISTICS Undergraduate Enrollment in the Swanson School 3,100 3,000 2,900 2,800 2,700 2,600 2,500 2,400 2,300 2,200 2,100 2,000 1,900 1,800 1,700 1,600 1,500 1,400 1,300

Research Productivity in the Swanson School Research Expenditures ($ Millions) $100 $90 $80 $70 $60 $50 $40 $30 $20 2010

2012

2014

2016

$10

2017

$0 2011-12

Graduate Enrollment in the Swanson School

2013-14

2014-15

Interdisciplinary

2015-16

2016-17

School

1,000 900 800 700

Engineering Endowment: Book and Market Value Increases Goal: $100 Million

600

$200,000,000

500

$175,000,000

400 2010

2012

2014

2016

$150,000,000

2017

$125,000,000

SAT Scores, Incoming First-Years, Swanson School

$100,000,000

1,450

$75,000,000

1,400

$50,000,000

1,350 1,300

$25,000,000

1,250 $0

1,200

2010

1,150

Market Value

1,100 1,050 1,000 2010

38

2012

2012

2014

2016

2017

SWANSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

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ANNUAL REPORT

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2014

2016

2017

Book Value

Photo courtesy of Office of University Communications

Swanson School of Engineering 104 Benedum Hall 3700 O’Hara Street Pittsburgh, PA 15261

engineering.pitt.edu

Photo courtesy of Office of University Communications