Pitt Engineering - Fall 2009

engineering

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH

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ood news came to the University of Pittsburgh again this fall with the latest edition of the U.S. News & World Report rankings. Among the variety of lists in this annual report, U.S. News highlights the nation’s “Top 50 Public Universities,” where Pitt has continued a tremendous upward run.

Pitt’s ranking of 19th moves the University past venerable academic powers including Purdue University, Texas A&M University, Rutgers University, and Ohio State University.

Schools just ahead of Pitt in this year’s ranking include University of Maryland, University of Texas, and University of Florida.

What’s most impressive is Pitt’s movement over the past five years, leaping from 39th to 19th. While no ranking can fully survey the quality of an institution’s programs, U.S. News does use 10 specific criteria in its methodology. These figures include such measures as graduation rates, SAT scores, class sizes, acceptance rates for admission, and freshman retention rates. In the School of Engineering, we have shown strong positive gains in many of these categories, which support Pitt’s overall position in the U.S. News rankings.

Gerald D. Holder, U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering

Pitt’s Rank Rank Among among the Pitt’s the Top 50 Public Universities Top 50 Public Universities — 19th 20062006 — 19th — 26th 20052005 — 26th — 27th 20042004 — 27th — 31st 20032003 — 31st 2002 — 39th 2002 — 39th

ENGINEERING NEWS

While the primary audience for U.S. News continues to be prospective students (and their nervous parents), I know alumni occasionally look up Pitt’s standing to see how it fares.

The sustained upward momentum of Pitt’s overall institutional ranking means all alumni are benefiting by holding a degree from a University that is becoming widely recognized as world class in all respects.

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One particular way alumni can have an impact on helping Pitt continue to move forward is simply through making an annual gift. U.S. News uses an “alumni giving rate” as one of the 10 criteria in determining an institution’s ranking.

The rationale for using this measure is based on the concept of student satisfaction. Alumni who feel they received a good education, it is believed, will be more inclined to be a donor to their institution. This measure does not consider any minimum gift level, so making an annual gift of any size positively impacts Pitt’s giving rate and, ultimately, its overall ranking.

Moving further upward, however, will be a considerable challenge because there is one characteristic of the U.S. News rankings that engineers will understand—inertia.

Unlike the weekly sports polls for college football or basketball, one rarely sees many schools moving into or out of the upper reaches of the U.S. News rankings. This is what makes Pitt’s rise so impressive—but also challenging for the future.

Pitt’s alumni giving rate in this year’s ranking came in at 16 percent, meaning 84 percent of Pitt alumni did not make a gift to the University in the past year. While this may sound unimpressive, it is comparable to other major public universities in Pitt’s peer group. Only a handful (including our friends at Penn State) can boast rates of 20 percent or higher, while it is the private schools that excel in this category. The best overall performer last year was Princeton University, with a remarkable 61 percent alumni giving rate.

While the School of Engineering has helped move Pitt’s overall ranking forward through many of the academic measures used by U.S. News, our alumni giving rate is an area where we need to improve.

All Pitt alumni can take great pride in the continued success of their alma mater while enjoying the benefits of holding a degree whose value continues to grow. In the years ahead, I’m hopeful more of our alumni will be active partners in our continued success by supporting the School of Engineering. More support, at any level, from our 25,000 engineering alumni will benefit the School of Engineering while also helping continue to move Pitt higher in the national rankings and add further value to your degree from the University of Pittsburgh.

Gerald D. Holder U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering

C O N T E N T S

engineering Features

Gerald D. Holder U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering Aaron Conley Executive Director of Development and Alumni Relations

Old School ........................................... 2

Sonia Bembic Director of Marketing & Communications/Editor

Pitt to Create New RFID Center ............. 5

Kelly Kaufman Communications Manager/Editor

Reaching our Own Tipping Point ............ 6

Don Henderson Designer Chuck Dinsmore Production Coordinator

Departments

Aviva Selekman Editorial Assistant Niki Kapsambelis Contributing Writer

Around the School .............................. 7

Have a comment or story idea for Engineering News?

Contact Sonia Bembic at 412-624-2460, or send an e-mail to sbembic@engr.pitt.edu Visit our Web site at: www.engr.pitt.edu

Student News .................................. 13

The University of Pittsburgh, as an educational institution and as an employer, values equality of opportunity, human dignity, and racial/ethnic and cultural diversity. Accordingly, the University prohibits and will not engage in discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, age, marital status, familial status, sexual orientation, disability, or status as a disabled veteran or a veteran of the Vietnam era. Further, the University will continue to take affirmative steps to support and advance these values consistent with the University’s mission. This policy applies to admissions, employment, and access to and treatment in University programs and activities. This is a commitment made by the University and is in accordance with federal, state, and/or local laws and regulations.

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Alumni Profile Pages ......................... 16 Alumni News .................................... 19

For information on University equal opportunity and affirmative action programs and complaint/grievance procedures, please contact the University of Pittsburgh, Office of Affirmative Action, William A. Savage, Assistant to the Chancellor and Director of Affirmative Action (and Title IX and 504, ADA Coordinator), 901 William Pitt Union, Pittsburgh, PA 15260; 412-648-7860.

Published in cooperation with the Department of University Marketing Communications. UMC5319-1205

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The provisions of this document are subject to change at any time at the University’s sole discretion. It is intended to serve only as a general source of information about the University and is in no way intended to state contractual terms.

On the Cover Advanced computing technologies have allowed the faculty of the Department of Industrial Engineering to solve complex problems in computational optimization and e-product design. Frank Kremm, systems analyst, peers at one of the 12 servers the department maintains for advanced computation. Not pictured is Jim Segneff, senior systems analyst, who also maintains the servers.

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www.engr.pitt.edu

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A Degree of Value

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Glenn Foglio stands in front of one of Graciano Corp.’s latest projects.

Graciano is the lead restoration contractor for the Armstrong Cork Factory Lofts in Pittsburgh’s Strip District.

uring steamy summer months between semesters at Pitt, Glenn Foglio spent eight hours a day jackhammering concrete in O’Hara Garage, gazing across the street at Benedum Hall and dreaming about the day he would return to the engineering classroom.

reading through the curriculum and asking around, he was drawn to industrial engineering and the way it melded business, computer, and systems skills with traditional engineering and mathematics.

“I was probably one of the few students who couldn’t wait to get back to school,” laughs Foglio, who earned his undergraduate degree in industrial engineering in 1983 and a master’s degree in the same field in 1990.

He particularly enjoyed his classes in operations analysis and project management. By the time he was ready to pursue a master’s degree, he considered an MBA, but decided to further his education in industrial engineering instead.

But then hard labor literally paved the road to his future occupation. By combining his construction background, contacts, and an education that was as much focused on management as it was on design and production, Foglio has fashioned a career even a highly skilled journeyman would appreciate.

“I really felt when I read the curriculum of the MBA … that I had a lot of those courses as an undergraduate at the engineering school,” he says. “I felt that the IE program prepared you as well—or better, I think—to manage, especially in the construction industry. … The master’s program fit where I was going—and what I wanted to perform at this company—perfectly.”

From Jackhammer to Boardroom As president of Graciano Corp. in O’Hara Township, Pa., Foglio oversees a company that has restored some of the most recognizable structures in the country. Among the projects in its portfolio are New York’s Queensboro Bridge, Rockefeller Center, Shea Stadium, and MetLife Building, not to mention Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium, Carnegie museums, and Western Pennsylvania Hospital.

Founded in 1916, the firm has grown from a small family-owned business for which Italian immigrant Joseph Graciano kept handwritten accounts on a notepad tucked in his shirt pocket to a multimillion-dollar corporation that employs 350–400 people during peak season.

Not coincidentally, Graciano was the company that employed Foglio to work on the O’Hara Garage.

A self-described hometown boy from Avalon, Pa., Foglio grew up around construction. He eventually found summer work as a laborer and masonry mechanic through contacts cultivated by his uncle, a business agent for the local chapter of the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craft Workers.

ENGINEERING NEWS

When the time came for young Foglio to attend college, majoring in engineering was the logical next step.

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“I always had an aptitude for math, but my father was in the furniture business for years,” Foglio recalls. “I was probably expected to go into the family business, but my senior year in high school I had a counselor who suggested engineering.”

Foglio entered the University of Pittsburgh with an eye toward pursuing civil engineering because he thought it was the closest match to construction work. But after

“It was something I fell in love with as soon as I read the course descriptions,” Foglio says.

F E A T U R E A L U M N I Glenn Foglio stands in front of one of Graciano’s Corp. latest projects.

Graciano is the lead restoration contractor for the Armstrong Cork Factory Lofts in Pittsburgh’s Strip District.

A Critical Path While Foglio was working summers for Graciano, he made an impression on his employer that would help determine the future path of his career, although he didn’t know it at the time.

“Through all my summers there, I would think to myself, ‘There is so much that I’m studying and so much that I’m learning that I could apply to a company like this,’ ” he says.

He later approached one of the company’s owners, Rick Graciano, who was conducting a worksite inspection at Three Rivers Stadium. Foglio proposed a student senior project that would create a computer program to calculate the critical path of a construction project, from developing a work schedule to completing each task.

Those were the days before prepackaged software, and the simple program impressed the owner. He agreed to let Foglio’s industrial engineering team create the program and jotted down his telephone number.

After graduation, Foglio took a job with the Babcock and Wilcox Tube Co. in Beaver Falls, Pa., before moving on to General Motors in Warren, Ohio. He was sitting at his desk one day when Rick Graciano called to offer him a job as an estimating project manager.

Foglio accepted, eager for a chance to return to his hometown. He eventually worked his way up to vice president and general manager before assuming the president’s position in 1991. As president, he develops the company’s mission and executes business strategies.

It’s a complicated job, having evolved significantly in the more than 20 years since Foglio wrote the computer program.

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Old School:

Glenn Foglio Engineers a Future for Masterpieces of the Past

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For example, Graciano keeps a database of production standards for every restoration work task the company has performed during the past decade. The information helps the company assess and estimate projects more accurately, eliminating much of the guesswork.

Foglio credits brothers David and Rick Graciano with affording him the freedom and flexibility to lead the company and to implement and constantly improve systems and processes, resulting in continuous growth over the years. Equally valuable, he says, are the sales, project management, and administrative staff who consistently deliver quality services to Graciano’s customers.

Some of the many Graciano projects from top to bottom: Two Mellon Bank, Rhode Island State House, Rockefeller Center, and Waynesburg College.

Parapets and Marble As sophisticated as business is nowadays, good craftsmanship still counts for something. As in the days of Joseph Graciano, today’s restoration work can be a painstaking, delicate journey from start to finish. While refurbishing the massive marble-framed clock on Manhattan’s MetLife Tower, a scouting party traveled to Westchester County, N.Y., to search for Tuckahoe marble.

The Tuckahoe quarries had been closed for decades but the search party spotted a station wagon-sized chunk in front of a Texaco station. The boulder was purchased and sliced into segments for the project.

At the Brooklyn Academy of Music, one of Foglio’s favorite projects, Graciano craftsmen restored the landmark Beaux Arts building using nothing but old architectural drawings and photos. The award-winning project involved, among other intricate tasks, the restoration of an 11-foot-high parapet that had been ripped off the building during the 1950s because it was deemed a safety hazard.

And at Rockefeller Center, a Graciano crew is cleaning city dirt and grime from all 12 buildings for the second time in eight years.

“It was a relatively simple project as far as scope of work, but the complexity of scheduling and scaffolding Radio City Music Hall and the GE Buildings, for example, was some of the most challenging work that we’ve done,” explains Foglio.

Real-World Education Business has become infinitely more sophisticated than Foglio might have imagined in the early 1980s, and he credits his Pitt engineering education with giving him the tools he needs to meet each challenge.

Even as he writes company mission statements, objectives, goals, and strategies, he remembers lessons in management and organization from his classroom days.

“I always felt the people who were teaching me were not just teaching me theory— that they had real-world experiences that they related to what we were learning,” he says. “I knew they knew what they were talking about because they were doing the work themselves.”

Pitt to Create New RFID Center

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“I think the specialty construction business, since the early days, has become much more sophisticated as a result of much more complicated specifications, purchasing departments, and more careful, sophisticated project management,” Foglio says.

“It takes a lot of resources, and a lot of devotion, and a lot of buy-in from the owners and top management to maintain the systems that we operate here.”

Major Expansion of University’s Cutting-Edge RFID Research Could Have Worldwide Business Impact On September 28, 2005, the School of Engineering formally announced the creation of a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Center of Excellence, which will enable the University to expand its already-powerful capabilities in the RFID field and remain a leader in directing RFID research. Pitt’s RFID research program has been identified as among the top three such programs worldwide.

The center will be directed by Marlin H. Mickle, Nickolas A. DeCecco Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Telecommunications, and Industrial Engineering at Pitt.

University Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg, U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering Gerald D. Holder, Mickle, and representatives from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Del Monte Foods, and Supply Systems Inc. (SSI) spoke at the announcement event. Representatives from at least 30 other international, national, and local companies attended.

“The RFID Center, led by Professor Mickle, will be a powerhouse of creativity and technological innovation that should lead to significant improvements in the economy and simplify the lives of consumers,” said Holder. “We’re excited about its huge potential.”

“We’re confident that this center will take us the final mile down the road to the widespread use of RFID technology in business and industry,” said Mickle.

“It’s not an overstatement to say that when the University of Pittsburgh perfects the technology, we may play a role in changing how the world does business.”

The RFID Center will be hosted in the John A. Swanson Institute for Technical Excellence (SITE) in the University’s School of Engineering. Pitt’s SITE comprises the John A. Swanson Center for Micro and Nano Systems (SCMNS) and the John A. Swanson Center for Product Innovation (SCPI). The SCMNS, a collaboration between School of Engineering researchers and industry partners, offers opportunities for companies to work with faculty in developing intellectual property, while the SCPI gives companies access to the University’s state-of-the-art product development technology through the consulting services of its students, faculty, and staff.

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In the meantime, he hopes his children might follow in his footsteps and attend the School of Engineering. Foglio and his wife, Carol, have three children. Sons Michael and Nicholas are 15 and 12, respectively, and the family recently welcomed Alexander Marcus, born October 19.

When talking to his sons about the future, “I push the IE curriculum real hard,” he laughs.

This article originally ran in the October 3, 2005, issue of Pitt Chronicle.

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ENGINEERING NEWS

To help current School of Engineering students get real-world experience, Foglio is recruiting them to work with Graciano Corp. on their senior projects—the first time the company has done so since he wrote his computer program in 1983.

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By Aaron Conley, Executive Director of Development and Alumni Relations

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hortly after I joined the School of Engineering in 2003, I read the bestselling book The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. Subtitled How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, this book explores a broad range of social movements, fads, and personalities, narrowly examining them all to learn just how these things grew in prominence or popularity. From low-budget movies that became overnight blockbusters to clothing has-beens that were suddenly the fashionable “it” thing again, and even modern outbreaks of disease in urban America, the author did a remarkable job illustrating how a little effort, along with the right combination of coincidence and serendipity, can combine to become an unstoppable force.

In many ways, the School of Engineering is seeking to reach its own tipping point. On the academic side, Dean Holder has illustrated in past issues of Engineering News and at many of our public alumni events that we are experiencing record performance in nearly every benchmark used to measure our success. Applications for admission have rocketed from 750 in 1996 to more than 2,100 last year. Also on the rise, average SAT scores of newly admitted students are approaching 1300, and more than half the incoming freshmen this year ranked in the top 10 percent of their high school classes. New faculty are being recruited from some of the nation’s most prestigious institutions, and the performance of our faculty, measured by research expenditures they generate from external grants, is at an all-time high.

Top 10 Universities

% of Alumni Who Give

Harvard Princeton Yale Pennsylvania Duke Stanford Cal Tech MIT Columbia Dartmouth

47% 61% 46% 40% 45% 38% 32% 37% 34% 49%

Reaching a tipping point doesn’t just mean showing improvements in simple benchmarks, however. As Gladwell explains, “Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.” When enough momentum has been generated, the equivalent of an epidemic occurs. And epidemics, as the author notes, “are strongly influenced by their situation—by the circumstances and conditions and particulars of the environment in which they operate.”

ENGINEERING NEWS

During the past three years, we have implemented a number of new initiatives aimed at better informing and engaging all our engiSource: U.S. News & World Report neering alumni in hopes of starting our own “epidemic.” This effort, modeled heavily on the activities so many elite private universities provide to their alumni, has included enhancing our Web site, restructuring Engineering News to include more personal profiles of alumni, and publishing a newsletter dedicated to informing

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alumni about our progress in the capital campaign.

We also have implemented new corporate activities including IntraFirm, Aaron Conley which brings Dean Holder and other faculty to companies with large numbers of our alumni for an annual visit, and the Corporate Affiliates Program, which provides opportunities for companies to enhance their visibility and to better recruit our graduates and collaborate with our faculty. We also have implemented more regional receptions in cities with large concentrations of engineering alumni including Houston; Detroit; Boston; Cleveland; Washington, D.C.; and Naples, Fla. So how will we know when our efforts have helped us reach our own tipping point? Rather than simply measuring the total amount of philanthropic support we receive each year, I prefer to measure the proportion of our alumni population that supports the School of Engineering annually, the same way U.S. News & World Report uses this as a criterion in its ranking methodology. During the past few years, this figure has held steady around just 10 percent, meaning about 2,500 engineering alumni out of our total population of 25,000 supported the School of Engineering with a gift of any size. When compared to alumni giving rates at elite private schools, including this year’s top 10 national universities ranked by U.S. News, we are clearly not experiencing a positive epidemic.

In The Tipping Point, the author also explains that every action has the potential to set into motion any number of other actions that can have an impact far beyond anyone’s expectation. Think of this in the context of your level of involvement as a graduate of the School of Engineering. If you haven’t been a regular donor and choose to become one this year, your gift, regardless of the amount, may help us meet a critical need that, in turn, propels us further upward in the national academic rankings. Your former classmates also may see your name listed in the annual honor roll of donors, which may convince them to begin supporting the school as well. Multiply this scenario many times to represent the staggering potential of our 25,000 alumni, and you can understand why we’re working so hard to start this epidemic in hopes of reaching our own tipping point.

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Bioengineering Michael Sacks, William Kepler Whiteford Professor, was awarded a major training grant titled Biomechanics in Regenerative Medicine (BiRM). The goal of the grant is to provide students with a solid foundation for a productive and independent career in biomechanics in regenerative medicine. It includes a highly Sacks coordinated and mentored interdisciplinary training program with a combination of required and elective courses, research activities, and specialized training opportunities. The BiRM Training Program involves faculty from the Departments of Bioengineering, Mechanical Engineering, Orthopaedic Surgery, and Urology, the Division of Vascular Surgery, Woo and the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, as well as from the mechanical and biomedical engineering departments at Carnegie Mellon University. This combination of faculty research interests and course work will provide a rich educational experience as well as more training opportunities for the students than would be possible within the individual departments.

Additionally, Sacks was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2004 and received the School of Engineering Board of Visitors 2005 Faculty Award.

Associate professor David A. Vorp was also inducted to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. The major criterion for fellow nomination is a demonstrated record of individual achievement in research, development, education, manufacturing, public service, technological leadership, and/or clinical practice as they relate to medical and biological engineering. Vorp served as cochair for the Second Frontiers in Biomechanics Symposium—sponsored by the U.S. National Committee on Biomechanics—in Vail, Colo., and was named an editorial consultant for the Journal of Biomechanics.

Postdoctoral research associate Alejandro Nieponice received an American Heart Association postdoctoral fellowship award for Development of a Novel Stem Cell-Based Vascular Graft.

Savio L-Y. Woo, William Kepler Whiteford Professor and professor of mechanical engineering, was a theme keynote speaker at the September 2005 IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society assembly in Shanghai, China. Additionally, in July 2005, he was the distinguished guest lecturer at The Herodicus Society, an elite society of only 98 members for orthopedic sports medicine. Woo was the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Distinguished Lecturer at the 2005 Annual Fall Meeting of BMES in Baltimore, Md., September 28–October 1, and he received the 2005 Robert Henry Thurston Lecture Award from The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). This prestigious award was established in 1925 to honor Thurston, the first ASME president, and is given annually to the person who best encourages stimulating thinking on a subject of broad technical interest to engineers. In November, Woo was honored at the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition in Orlando, Fla., where he delivered a lecture titled “Going from In Vitro to In Vivo: The New Big Challenges for Ligament and Tendon Biomechanics Research.”

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Tipping Point

Around the School

During the past year, Woo also received honorary memberships to several organizations including the Arthroscopy Association of North America, Society for Tennis Medicine and Science—which named him its first and only honorary member—and The Herodicus Society, which dubbed him “Godfather,” as he was the first PhD to receive this honor.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Acquisition and Assistance Field Branch has approved assistant professor Richard Debski’s contract application Computer Model of the Knee for funding. Professors Woo and Mark Redfern are coinvestigators in this research.

During the joint meeting of the International Society of Biorheology and International Society for Clinical Hemorheology in Chongqing, China, Marina Kameneva was elected a member of the council and treasurer of the International Society for Clinical Hemorheology. Kameneva is research associate professor of surgery and bioengineering and director of the Artificial Blood Program at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

Debski

Redfern

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Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Anna C. Balazs was named a Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering by Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg. Balazs received the title for her extraordinary levels of achievement within her field. Balazs’ research focuses on theoretical and computer modeling of the thermodynamic Balazs and kinetic behavior of polymer blends and composites. She also investigates the properties of polymers at surfaces and interfaces. Nordenberg made the appointment on the recommendations of School of Engineering Dean Gerald D. Holder and Pitt Provost James V. Maher.

Radisav Vidic (front row, left)

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In addition to distinguished professor, Balazs is also Robert Von der Luft Professor and a researcher in the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Institute of NanoScience and Engineering.

Rory Cooper was honored during the July 19 Pittsburgh Pirates game at PNC Park.

George E. Klinzing, William Kepler Whiteford Professor and vice provost for research, received the 2005 McAfee Award from the Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. Klinzing’s research in the field of solids processing spans the topics of coal cleaning, coalwater slurries, coal dewatering, combustion, and pneumatic conveying of industrial bulk solids. His distinguished work in pneumatic transport has brought him international recognition and is evidenced by his 13 patents and more than 200 papers in reputable journals.

James Cobb, associate professor emeritus, was named chair of the Fundamentals of Engineering Examination Committee of the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying. This subcommittee prepares a portion of the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) Examination for chemical engineering. Many universities are using the FE exam as an exit examination for their bachelor’s degree programs. Additionally, Cobb is serving as vice chair this year of the Career and Education Operating Council (CEOC) of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. CEOC, which is one of three councils reporting to the Board of Directors, has oversight over all the career and education activities of the institute. He will chair the council next year.

Civil and Environmental Engineering The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy awarded Radisav Vidic, professor, a three-year $400,000 grant titled Partitioning and Mechanism Studies for Mercury and Associated Trace Metals within CoalFired Processes. The grant is to study chemical reactions and mercury transformation in flue gases of coal-fired

Luis E. Vallejo, professor, was invited to present a lecture titled “A Network of Fractal Force Chains and Their Effect in Granular Materials under Compression” at Fractals in Engineering V, held in June 2005 in Tours, France. Vallejo’s paper—that he coauthored with PhD students Sebastian Lobo-Guerrero and Zamri Chik—was published as a chapter in Fractals in Engineering: New Trends in Theory and Applications.

Assistant professor Kent Harries was awarded a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship and spent four weeks in Japan researching performancebased seismic design. For 10 days, Harries and Jerome Lynch (University of Michigan) led the National Science Foundation Natural Hazards Mitigation in Japan Program, accompanying a group of 12 U.S. graduate students and three high school teachers on a whirlwind tour of many of Japan’s largest structural engineering research facilities and a number of signature bridge and building projects.

For the remainder of the fellowship, Harries was a visiting researcher at the Earthquake Research Institute at the University of Tokyo. While in Japan, Harries also delivered a number of invited lectures.

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NIH awarded Sanjeev G. Shroff, professor and Gerald McGinnis Chair in Bioengineering, a grant for a cardiovascular bioengineering training program, a predoctoral program aimed at educating talented students from engineering and other quantitative sciences for careers in biomedical research in the cardiovascular area—a subject in which the University is at the forefront of education and research. The new program is interdisciplinary and interdepartmental in nature. Although the Department of Bioengineering forms the core, the training faculty is drawn from a number of departments: chemical engineering, cell biology and physiology, medicine (cardiology), critical care medicine, pediatrics (cardiology), surgery (cardiothoracic and vascular), and radiology.

power plants and to develop and validate a mathematical model to predict mercury emissions.

The researchers’ main focus is to understand fundamentals of the catalytic reactions that are promoted by solid surfaces present in coal combustion systems, which can be exploited to develop more effective and efficient technologies for controlling mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. The grant is part of the DOE’s University Coal Research Program, which supports research in clean coal technology.

The department will host the 2005 Landis-Epic Lecture “Bridge Forms and Aesthetics” at 4 p.m. December 1 in the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium and Cloister. Man-Chung Tang, chairman of the board and technical director of T.Y. Lin International in San Francisco, Calif., will deliver a lecture on the importance of aesthetics in bridge design and its impact on the environment. The Landis-Epic Lectureship was established in 1991 in honor of Donald H. Landis, president of Epic Metals Corp. and a 1952 civil engineering graduate. An outstanding businessman and engineer, Landis is nationally recognized as a leader in the design and construction of cold-formed steel structures. This distinguished lectureship is possible because of Landis’ generous contribution.

Harris Pradano of Kyoto University inspect the massive cables on the Akashi Kaiko Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the world.

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) has provided three separate grants to the department.

The first, in the amount of $300,000 is to study sources and remediation strategies for acid rock discharges.

Ronald D. Neufeld, professor, will lead a team of graduate students and engineering consultants from GAI Consultants to evaluate low- and high-maintenance (passive and active) technologies for acid rock drainage remediation and propose engineering alternatives and best designs for application to the Jonathan Run area in central Pennsylvania.

William E. Stanchina has joined the department as chair. Stanchina comes from HRL Laboratories in Malibu, Calif., where he had worked since 1984, most recently as director of the microelectronics laboratory. Prior to joining HRL, he was an associate professor with tenure in the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Notre Dame. Stanchina holds a PhD and an MS in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California. He completed his undergraduate work in electrical engineering at Notre Dame. He holds 16 patents and has published 70 papers.

The second, in the amount of $194,274, will enable Assistant Professor Julie Vandenbossche to conduct a “Smart Pavement” study.

The American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) recognized Marwan Simaan, Bell Atlantic Professor, as a fellow during a special awards ceremony at its annual conference. Fellow status is reserved for those who have been members for at least 10 years and have made valuable contributions to engineering education.

The third, in the amount of $67,274, is for Harries to develop a testing protocol and test method for the evaluation of offset reinforcing bar splice systems.

Kent Harries (left) and

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Professor Rory Cooper was chosen to receive the Maxwell J. Schleifer Distinguished Service Award from Exceptional Parent magazine. He was honored for his efforts on behalf of the special needs community at PNC Park on Disability Awareness Night, July 19.

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Needy

Marlin H. Mickle, Nickolas A. DeCecco Professor, was accepted into the AIDC 100, a nonprofit, self-sustaining, nonpolitical association of automatic identification/data capture (AIDC) professionals. AIDC 100 serves as a technical resource to the industry. Mickle also accepted an invitation to serve on the scientific advisory board of SmartWear Technologies Inc., a company that embeds radio frequency identification (RFID) technology into children’s clothing to help locate lost or kidnapped children. Mickle also has been named to the short list for the Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board Ad Hoc All-Ages Lead Model Review Panel.

In addition, Mickle received a Carnegie Science Center 2005 Award for Excellence. ReedSmith LLP presented him with the Corporate Innovation Award for “empowering students to experience firsthand the process of developing innovation.” Mickle joined Pitt engineering alumni Paul Arch and Keith LeJeune in receiving an Award for Excellence.

Industrial Engineering In June, faculty from the department took first place in the ASEE Industrial Engineering Division Best Paper Awards. The paper, titled “A Conceptual Model for Integrating and Synthesizing the Industrial Engineering Curriculum,” was written by Bryan A. Norman, associate professor; Mary Besterfield-Sacre, assistant professor; Bopaya Bidanda, Ernest E. Roth Professor and chair; Kim LaScola Needy, associate professor and undergraduate program director; and Jayant Rajgopal, associate professor and graduate program director. They presented the paper at the 2004 ASEE Annual Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Ming-En “Alex” Wang, assistant professor, participated in a fellowship through NASA Summer Faculty Research Opportunities (NSFRO) during summer 2005. He spent 10 weeks between June and August at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, helping to conduct research for the Satellite Networks & Architectures Branch.

Wang’s main focus at NASA was to assist the agency with

During his tenure as interim chair this past year, Patrick Loughlin, professor, recruited two outstanding faculty members who joined the department in the fall of 2005.

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planning and preflight assessment of Space Wireless Local Area Networks (SWLAN). NASA has been studying commercial wireless technologies to develop energy-efficient, reliable, miniaturized, integrated SWLAN that would facilitate exploration missions on planetary surfaces. NASA’s goal for SWLAN is to address the specific need for short-range, low-power, low-cost, infrastructure-free wireless technologies that can be used at exploration sites to support realtime video, voice, and data communications. During his 10 weeks at NASA, Wang completed a SWLAN architectural study and established a performance assessment methodology. Back on campus, he is continuing the SWLAN project and is seeking to secure research funding via the Glenn Research Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Materials Science and Engineering Professors Frederick S. Pettit and Gerald H. Meier presented a two-day course, “Science and Technology of Advanced Metallic Systems for Applications in Intermediate Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs),” September 22–23 at the National Energy Technology Laboratory site in Morgantown, W.Va. Some 30 scientists and engineers attended the course, which was broadcast over the Internet to universities and national and industrial laboratories across the country.

Zhi-Hong Mao, assistant professor, earned a PhD in electrical and medical engineering from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology in 2005. While there, he was involved in research on human sensorimotor control and the development of a unified model of basal ganglionic function in both lower-level movement control and higher-level cognitive decision making. Mao also earned a Master of Science (MS) degree in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT in 2000 and a Master of Engineering (ME) degree in intelligent control, a Bachelor of Engineering (BE) degree in automatic control (1995), and a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in mathematics (1995), all from Tsinghua University in China. His research interests include systems and control theory, signal processing, human sensorimotor control, neural plasticity and learning, and robotics.

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A depiction of NASA’s efforts with integrated Space Wireless Local Area Networks

The course included an introduction to the requirements for materials in SOFCs and associated balance of plant, the metallurgy of Fe and Ni base alloys, oxidation and corrosion of alloys, advanced coatings, and materials selection and design.

Mechanical Engineering Sung Kwon Cho, assistant professor, received a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and a grant from the Swanson Center for Micro and Nano Systems.

His paper “Microbubble Manipulation towards SingleCell Handling Tool” with his student YueJun Zhao was selected in the final list for the best papers in the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics 2005 (RoBio 2005).

Minhee Yun joins the department as an assistant professor after four years on the senior staff in the device application group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. While at JPL, he led research efforts in the area of device fabrication based on micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) technologies, chemical and biochemical nanowire sensor arrays for life detection on Mars, and biosignature detection of emerging diseases.

Bopaya Bidanda and students

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Giovanni Galdi, professor, and Robertson, together with Professors Rolf Rannacher (University of Heidelberg, Germany) and Stefan Turek (University of Dortmund, Germany), co-organized the Oberwolfach Seminar “Hemodynamical Flows: Aspects of Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation,” which was held in Oberwolfach, Germany, November 20–26. Robertson lectured on modeling blood flow in the arterial system and Galdi delivered a series of lectures dedicated to fluid-particle and fluid-structure interaction. The European Union, the European Science Foundation, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the NSF sponsored the seminar.

Galdi also was on the organizing committee and gave a plenary presentation at the International Workshop on Current Topics in Mathematical Fluid Mechanics (MFM 05) in Lisbon, Portugal. The workshop included world leaders in mathematical fluid mechanics from 10 countries and was sponsored by the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) and the Center of Applied Mathematics (CEMAF). Galdi also gave a plenary presentation at the Fourth Conference on Applied Mathematics and Scientific Computing held on the island of Brijuni, Croatia. Organized by the University of Zagreb and sponsored by, among others, the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education, and Sports, the conference featured speakers from 12 countries. Galdi also held a European Union Professorship at the Technical University of Lisbon (IST) in Portugal.

Jeffrey S. Vipperman, an associate professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Bioengineering, and Laura A. Schaefer, assistant professor, were awarded an NSF grant for Microfabricated Thermoacoustic Refrigerators for Electronics Cooling Applications.

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Anne M. Robertson, associate professor, gave a keynote lecture, “Multi-Scale Models of Arterial Flow,” at the 2nd International Symposium on Modelling of Physiological Flows in Sesimbra, Portugal. She also gave an invited lecture titled “One Dimensional and Director Theory Models of the Vasculature” at the Politecnico di Milano Technical University in Milano, Italy, on June 29. In addition, Robertson held a European Union Professorship at the Technical University of Lisbon (IST) in Portugal. The Center for Mathematics and Its Applications (CEMAT) and Luso American Foundation (FLAD) provided support for this visiting position.

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He received the JPL Team Award and the JPL Spot Award for his outstanding performance. Yun’s current research interests include the development of nanoelectronic devices for biomedical applications for early detection of disease signatures using nanostructured materials. Yun earned PhD (1998) and MS (1996) degrees in chemical, bio, and materials engineering from Arizona State University and a BS (1992) and MS (1994) in chemical engineering from Chon-buk National University in Korea.

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Chyu

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The devices are a novel technology that may allow manufacturers to reliably provide higher levels of heat dissipation from commercial and military electronics.

The NSF recently awarded Qing-Ming Wang, assistant professor, and Minking Chyu, Leighton and Mary Orr Chair in Engineering, a three-year grant of $249,999 to carry out a research project titled Acoustic Wave Gas Sensors for Ultra-High Temperature Environments. The researchers will study the use of novel acoustic-wave devices for ultrahightemperature gas sensors and the fundamental issues related to the sensitivity, selectivity, and stability of the devices. The ultimate goal of this research is to develop a fast, simple, inexpensive, and reliable resonator-sensorbased instrument for detecting various gases, including oxygen and nitrogen oxides (NOx) in fossil-fuel power generation systems.

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Peyman Givi, William Kepler Whiteford Professor, was awarded the NASA Public Service Medal, which recognizes exceptional contributions to NASA’s mission. He received the award “for the development of advanced modeling techniques for designing high-speed and hypersonic propulsion systems for aerospace vehicles.” NASA Langley Director Roy D. Bridges presented the medal to Givi in a private ceremony. He was among the first 15 engineering faculty members nationwide to be honored at the White House for receiving the Presidential Faculty Fellowship from President George H.W. Bush.

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Michael Lovell (BSME ’89, PhD ’94), associate professor and associate dean for research, received the 2005 Burt L. Newkirk Award for his “significant contributions to the field of tribology, primarily through publications and services, for nearly 15 years and as an expert in computational and manufacturing tribology.” The award is given to an individual who has not passed his/her 40th birthday on July 1 of the year in which the award is conferred Marlin Mickle addresses the media during a press conference announcing the RFID Center of Excellence.

The Mascaro Sustainability Initiative (MSI) has received a $3.2 million Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) grant from the NSF to train students in sustainable engineering in São Paulo, Brazil. The program—spearheaded by MSI, the School of Engineering, and the Center for Latin American Studies—will allow engineering doctoral students to journey to São Paulo for eight-month international research rotations at Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), one of the top engineering schools in South America. “Sustainability is a global issue, and an appropriate technology for the U.S. may not be appropriate for another region,” noted principal investigator Eric Beckman, who is the Bayer Professor of Chemical Engineering at Pitt and codirector of MSI. “At UNICAMP, students will gain an international perspective on technology and design, with an eye to learning about novel approaches to sustainability developed by our Brazilian colleagues.”

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is transforming industry, and the University of Pittsburgh is at the cutting edge of its development. On June 28, the Swanson Institute for Technical Excellence hosted the conference RFID: Hype, Reality, and Hope. Leading RFID researcher Marlin H. Mickle, Nickolas A. DeCecco Professor of electrical and computer engineering, telecommunications, and industrial engineering at Pitt, was the featured speaker.

The conference was presented in cooperation with Mobile Aspects, Inteligistics, FOX IV Technologies, Vocollect, Secure Symbology Inc., E-SOC, GlaxoSmithKline, Paxar Corp., and Del Monte Foods.

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Engineering students from Pitt and other universities took IE 1601: Global Manufacturing Systems Engineering onboard a ship as participants in the Semester at Sea program during the summer. The ship docked in eight countries in Northern Europe: Iceland, Norway, Russia, Poland, Belgium, France, Ireland, and Spain. IE 1601 covers manufacturing in a global context, addressing issues such as outsourcing and global supply chains in addition to traditional manufacturing topics. As part of the class, students toured facilities in several of the countries they visited, including a Caterpillar factory outside of St. Petersburg, Russia; the famous shipyard in Gdansk, Poland; and the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. Most of the students, including six business majors, also took IE 1602/BUSQOM 1603: Manufacturing Cultures, a joint engineering and business class. The program was led by Jayant Rajgopal, associate professor of industrial engineering.

Alexis Wickwire, a Musculoskeletal Research Center (MSRC) graduate student, received the Rita Schaffer Undergraduate Award from the University of Pittsburgh chapter of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES). This award is in honor of her outstanding leadership and service to BMES. Matt Fisher, also an MSRC graduate student, was appointed as a BiRM (Biomechanics in Regenerative

Medicine Training Program) Fellow. This is a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded fellowship that will support him during his first two years of graduate school.

Fisher’s research will focus on using functional tissue engineering techniques to improve the healing of the patellar tendon after injury. Fisher earned a BS in biomedical engineering from Columbia University and plans to obtain his PhD in bioengineering at Pitt.

J. Scott VanEpps (BSChE ’01), a PhD candidate working in David Vorp’s lab in the Department of Bioengineering, was awarded a $5,000 postgraduate scholarship from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As an undergraduate, VanEpps was a member of the Pitt men’s swim team. He received the University of Pittsburgh BlueGold Award and was an NCAA Academic All-America selection, a GTE All-Academic First Team selection, and Male Big East Scholar Athlete of the Year. Having earned dual BS degrees in molecular biology and chemical engineering, VanEpps is now pursuing both an MD and a PhD in bioengineering through Pitt’s Medical Scientist Training Program.

George Engelmayr was a finalist in the cells and tissue engineering category of the PhD Student Paper Competition and Poster Presentation at the 2005 Summer Bioengineering Conference in Vail, Colo. Engelmayr is completing his PhD in bioengineering in Michael Sacks’ lab.

Semester at Sea participants (back row, left to right) Andy Takach, Kevin Dover, Jim Tarquinio (Pitt engineering), Jayant Rajgopal (Pitt industrial engineering associate professor and the program’s director), Bob Gambino (Pitt), (front row, l to r) Amy Nagengast (University of Wisconsin at Madison), Stephanie Page (Pitt), Kristen Landmann (Colorado State University), Marly Maskill (University of Michigan), Erika Short (University of Florida), Chris Bobish (Pitt), and Stephanie Carnes (Pitt)

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and who is an American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) member at the time of nomination. Newkirk made notable achievements in the theory and application of tribology during his industrial career and was an outstanding teacher following his retirement from industry.

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N E W S Bioengineering graduate student Zhijie Ding attended the 2005 American Society of Cell Biology Summer Meeting in Seattle, Wash. He presented a paper titled “Effects of Silencing Profilin on Endothelial Cytoskeleton and Migration.” Ding is conducting this work in Partha Roy’s lab.

Bioengineering PhD candidate David Merryman received an American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship for his project titled Effects of Local Stress on Aortic Valve Interstitial Cell Phenotype and Resulting Synthetic Function. His application scored a remarkable 0.63 percent. The percentile rank is based on a 0.01–99.99 percent ranking, with the most meritoriously ranked application corresponding to the lowest percentile rank.

Merryman will conduct this project in Sacks’ lab.

ENGINEERING NEWS

Bioengineering graduate student Brooke Coley’s NIH F31 predoctoral fellowship application, titled Adaptive Postural Strategies—Impact of Aging, has been approved for funding effective immediately. She is the fifth bioengineering graduate student at Pitt to receive a prestigious F31 award through the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Awards for Individual Predoctoral Fellows program. Rakié Cham is Coley’s academic advisor and research mentor.

The University of Pittsburgh was among 14 institutional award recipients nationwide for the Beckman Scholars Program. Bioengineering student Michael Anderson was named a Beckman Scholar and received funding for 2005–06. The program recognizes outstanding undergraduate students in chemistry and biological sciences research, and its purpose is to stimulate, encourage, and support research activities by these students.

Students in the Department of Industrial Engineering were credited with assisting MEDRAD, a Pittsburgh-based medical device manufacturer, in winning the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The July 2005 issue of IIE Solutions featured MEDRAD and its successful

Industrial engineering students Christina Albertson, Randy Bunch, Andrew Franklin, and Blake Orlandi took second place in the 2004–05 Material Handling Student Design Competition sponsored by the College Industry Council on Material Handling Education (CICMHE) and Modern Materials Handling magazine. Gross & Associates developed the competition case based on an actual project. Five independent judges evaluated the submissions. Three of the judges are academic members of CICMHE who did not have teams participating in this year’s competition. The fourth and fifth judges were industrial members of Material Handling Industry of America with experience in integrated systems design.

Norman served as the team’s advisor.

Daniel Armanios, a dual major in mechanical engineering and political science, was the first student to receive both a Harry S. Truman Scholarship and a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship. The Truman Scholarship is a prestigious national award that recognizes college juniors who have exceptional leadership potential and who are committed to pursuing a career in government, the nonprofit or advocacy sectors, education, or public service. The award provides financial support for graduate study, leadership training, and a fellowship with other students who are committed to making a difference through public service. In 2004–05, Armanios won a Goldwater Scholarship, which is considered to be the premier national undergraduate award in mathematics, natural science, and engineering.

Paul Ohodnicki, a graduate student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, received a 2005–06 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

This national fellowship provides three years of funding (both tuition and a stipend) for science and engineering students who will pursue a doctoral degree in, or related to, an area of DoD interest. Out of approximately 3,700 applicants, 180 fellowships were awarded. Of the 180 fellows, 15 are in the field of materials science.

Electrical and computer engineering senior Marcus Scott, 2005–06 president of the Pitt chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), was named to the National Convention Planning Committee for the 2006 NSBE National Convention to be held in Pittsburgh March 29–April 2.

Jacqueline Zaldana, a civil engineering student, has been named the regional student representative for the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers’ largest region, Region IV.

(L to r) Mike Buric, Chuck Jewart, U.S. Representative John Murtha, Ben McMillen, and Zsolt Poole

Bioengineering graduate students Nicolas Perrusquia and Alexa Polk won predoctoral fellowships from the Provost’s Development Fund.

Michael Buric, Charles Jewart, Ben McMillen, and Zsolt Poole, master’s and doctoral degree students from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, attended the ARMTech Showcase of Industry & Technology,

an annual event held by the Armstrong County (Pa.) Regional Manufacturing Initiative (ARMTech). As the region’s premier event for next-generation technology, the showcase provides local, national, and international businesses the opportunity to network and develop business connections for the future.

U.S. Representative John P. Murtha, of Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District, joined participants in the 2005 showcase to discuss programs, products, and services.

E-Week 2005 Teaching assistants Pete Mandeville (top left) and Andrew Jon Klimas (bottom left) volunteered to be part of the Pie a Professor fundraiser during E-Week 2005.

(Top right, l to r) Steve Huynh, Melanie Golembiewski, Rebecca Vereb, and Aaron Ford display their Engenuity project during E-Week 2005. They had one hour to construct the tallest tower possible that could support an egg without collapsing and were permitted to use only the supplies provided, which included items such as straws, tongue depressors, paper clips, and tape, and were not permitted to use outside resources for assistance.

(Bottom right, l to r) Abbie Shoemaker, Aaron Ford, Brian Venus, Rebecca Vereb, and Hansen Brenkus at the E-Week 2005 Olympics.

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conversion to lean manufacturing, including how Pitt industrial engineering students and faculty were instrumental in the transition. The transition was a significant factor in MEDRAD’s receiving the Malcolm Baldrige Award. For more information, read the full article in IIE Solutions or contact Bryan Norman, associate professor of industrial engineering, by e-mail at banorman@engr.pitt.edu.

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Bill Niro (above) and Ray Niro (below right)

Trying to keep up with Chicago brothers Bill (BSChE ’67) and Ray (BSChE ’65) Niro isn’t easy.

(After many attempts, they couldn’t even get together to pose in the same photo for this article.) As partners in the downtown Chicago law firm Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro, Bill and Ray have carved a successful niche in intellectual property (IP) law, developing a national reputation for protecting inventors and smaller companies from corporate goliaths who might claim a patented product or process as their own.

The road to the legal profession started for these Baldwin, Pa., natives at the urging of their mother and father, immigrants who left Italy as teenagers with little more than grade school educations. Their father earned a reputation in Pittsburgh as an accomplished stonemason who built some of the prominent homes in the Squirrel Hill section of the city.

According to Bill, their parents repeatedly urged them to go to college. “Dad never wanted to see us follow him into such a manual labor career. He was very proud of his work and great at what he did, but he wanted us all to have a better life.”

ENGINEERING NEWS

Ray recalls a familiar phrase their father used to tell them in the summer when he and Bill, along with oldest brother Joe, helped on construction projects. “He’d always tell us ‘You can make a lot more money using your brain than you can using your back.’ ” Their mother constantly urged them to get an education. “Youth is the preparation time,” she would say. And prepare they did.

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Ray chose engineering partly because of the precedent set by his brother-in-law, Wayne DiBartola (BSME ’55), and he focused on chemical engineering simply because he did well in his high school chemistry course. During his junior year, he was convinced by fellow classmate and friend Al Dickerson (BSChE ’64) to take the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) with him “just for fun.” As Ray recalls, “I went into it with almost no preparation, and I spent most of the time being mad at Al because we were spending a fall Saturday afternoon taking this test and missing the big Pitt football game against visiting Notre Dame!”

Law school would come several years later, when he began taking part-time classes at the University of Houston while working full time for Shell Chemical. He soon moved to Washington, D.C., for a position with DuPont that allowed him to finish his JD degree at George Washington University. He was recruited to a Chicago law firm after graduation, and went on with several partners to found Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro in 1976.

Bill followed his brother by just three years, and he also didn’t dive right into law immediately. After his initial job at U.S. Steel Clairton Works, Bill headed west to California where he shared an apartment with another Pitt engineer, Mike Neesham (BSEE ’68), who was working in the aerospace industry. Bill took a position with the Los Angeles County Air Pollution Control District, but was drawn back to the Midwest by his brother and the field of law. He enrolled at DePaul University College of Law, where he received his JD degree, went on to receive a Master of Laws degree at George Washington University and then taught for six years at Northern Illinois University College of Law. He joined his brother at the firm in 1981.

In 1987, Bill was asked to represent the inventor and first commissioner of a new professional indoor football league.

“Those early years were a real struggle and took a lot of time away from my law practice,” Bill said. Nearly 20 years later, the Arena Football League (AFL) is enjoying tremendous success and continues to add franchises to the 18 cities where AFL teams already play.

According to Bill, his involvement in starting the AFL required his legal and business skills as well as his specialty in patent, trademark, and copyright law. “Arena

Bill is a member of the AFL Board of Directors and works with the league through Gridiron Enterprises, a company he runs along with longtime friend, Jerry Kurz, and the game’s inventor and league founder, Jim Foster. Bill is currently working with the Pitt Alumni Club of Chicago to organize an outing and reception at a Chicago Rush game during the upcoming season. Last year, another Pitt alumnus, NFL Hall of Famer Mike Ditka (CAS ’61), became a part owner of the Rush.

For these brothers, an engineering background has proven invaluable to the success of their firm. As Ray explains, “When I went into patent law, it was common for the attorneys to have engineering backgrounds; in fact, it was easy to spot patent attorneys back then because we were the ones with slide rules on our belts.” Only after IP law started becoming lucrative did you find attorneys without an engineering or technical background, he adds. “Some IP attorneys today have never even seen the inside of an engineering lab.”

While their typical clients are individuals or smaller companies, they do represent larger companies. In 1995, Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro successfully won damage awards and three injunctions for Black & Decker against companies that were producing identical flashlights to their highly popular SnakeLight flexible flashlight. In another case, Ray successfully defended the Colorado inventor of an electric fuel injection system designed for snowmobiles that another company was using in its products. The judgment resulted in a $75.5 million award for the inventor, which was a record in that state and even eclipsed the combined total of all other Colorado jury awards that year, which totaled $68 million. In the 1990s, Ray and Bill teamed up to wage a successful nine-year battle against two giants in the meat and fast food industries on behalf of, who else, two entrepreneurial brothers who invented a unique sausage pizza topping.

As Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro approaches the 30th anniversary of its founding, neither of the Niro brothers appears to be interested in slowing down.

“Between the law practice and Arena Football,” says Bill, “I’m having more fun than I ever could have imagined.”

And Ray confides it’s the thrill of winning that keeps him going. “The personal rewards of this work are indescribable, since many of the cases we have won literally changed the lives of my clients.”

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Considering their determination and success, these sons of Italian immigrants have no doubt made their parents proud.

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With the flick of a switch, there is light. Press a button and—presto!—television. Want some popcorn with that TV show? Just go to the microwave and punch in the cook time. Are the lights too bright to see the TV screen? Slide the dimmer switch to take the lighting down a notch.

Alan Metzler and Richard Imler with the Seward Station in the background.

These are simple examples of everyday uses of electricity, which is available so quickly and easily that one rarely—if ever—stops to think about what it takes to provide this convenience.

However, Richard “Dick” Imler (BSME ’68) and Alan Metzler (BSMET ’82, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown) think about it constantly. They have built their careers around generating electricity that is efficient and inexpensive—and also safe for the environment.

Both Imler and Metzler started their careers in energy generation fresh out of college when they joined Pennsylvania Electric Co., now Reliant Energy. Imler is the general manager and Metzler the technical manager of the Seward Station, the waste-coal power plant across the Conemaugh River from Seward, Pa., a small town near Johnstown.

Although they haven’t always worked in the same division or location, Metzler started his career under Imler’s direction, and both have played a significant role in transforming the plant into an award-winning site.

In 2004, Reliant received the Pennsylvania Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence, recognizing its commitment to environmental stewardship. State government representatives were on hand to dedicate the Seward Station site in September 2004.

“Advanced energy projects like Reliant’s waste coal power station are helping to distinguish our commonwealth as a leader in technology development and creating excitement about Pennsylvania as an innovative, cutting-edge place to do business,” Environmental Protection Secretary

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Football is the only professional sport in the world to have its rules of play patented. Every aspect of the game, including the size of the field, goal posts, and scoring is patented.”

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N E W S Reliant employees can also boast about the positive impact the company has made on the environment, including cleaning up waste-coal sites and reducing acid mine drainage. Metzler adds, “Most people probably don’t think about all the thought and planning that actually go into energy generation. There are a lot of facets to the industry; it’s complex.”

Metzler and Imler recognize how much their Pitt engineering degrees have helped them throughout their careers.

Metzler believes his degree in mechanical engineering technology provided the hands-on knowledge he needed early on, and Imler says his theoretical foundation has helped him to translate knowledge into solutions.

“The field of engineering in general requires problem-solving skills, and the process of engineering education should be in tune with that,” Metzler says. There is a significant need for engineers in the energy sector, says Imler, and he believes the time has come for prospective engineers to take a fresh look at the energy generation industry.

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Robert Ferber alongside a model of the Voyager spacecraft, one of JPL’s many successes, launched in 1977 and still operating

Kathleen A. McGinty said at the groundbreaking ceremony.

“The ability to deliver reliable, affordable, and clean energy is an investment in environmental quality, economic development, and homeland security.”

Both Imler and Metzler share this mission and were key players in the opening of a more environmentally friendly Seward power plant.

ENGINEERING NEWS

“It took a decade of planning and three years of construction to upgrade our site with the new plant,” Imler says.

His vision was to take the “next great step to a new generation of power plants.” The Seward power plant is the largest waste coal-fired generating plant in the world and the only merchant plant of its kind in the United States.

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Most aspiring engineers seem to realize at a young age that they are destined for a career in this field, whether it’s an early interest in math or science classes, building toy models, or just tinkering with the family car. For Robert Ferber (BSEE ’58), it was the advent of television that caught his interest, leading him to start his own TV repair business when he was just 14 years old. The Overbrook, Pa., native and Carrick High School graduate built his hobby into a successful enterprise.

“I started out riding my bicycle to service calls but made enough money to buy a motorcycle and eventually a car,” Ferber recalls.

While Imler provided the leadership for the transition, Metzler directed the business-planning end. The Seward site was transformed from a straight coal burning plant to one that uses waste coal. Metzler says the $800 million cost made long-term financial and environmental sense.

Even after enrolling in the electrical engineering degree program at Pitt, he continued working part time, moving into the radio business as an audio engineer with local station WWSW, where he helped with broadcasts of Pittsburgh Pirates and Steelers games. He also was part of the team that put WQED TV on the air in 1954. The nation’s first educational television station also helped launch the career of Fred Rogers and the famous children’s program Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, something Ferber got to experience personally.

“This new plant produces two-and-a-half times more electricity than the old Seward plant—while significantly decreasing emissions—and is one of the least expensive generators in the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland market,” he says. “This coal-waste technology is beneficial for

“I operated a camera for the show and still have a photo of all of us on the set during that first year,” he says.

“It was a great experience to be part of this and to see it go from just a local Pittsburgh program to a nationally televised audience.”

Ferber also worked on Westinghouse electric power projects and the development of photovoltaic cells designed to harness solar energy for powering satellites. He was able to arrange a leave of absence from his job to earn an MSEE and PhD from Carnegie Mellon University while still using the Westinghouse labs for his research. He completed his graduate work in 1967 and stayed with Westinghouse for another 10 years, where he continued his research in solar energy and developed an impressive reputation through numerous research publications, patents, and conference presentations in the growing field.

Ferber’s work caught the attention of NASA’s famed Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., where he took a job as a semiconductor physicist in March of 1977 and remained there until retiring in November 2004.

During his career with JPL, Ferber served in management roles for many projects including Earth-orbiting radiometer receivers to monitor upper atmosphere pollution and ozone depletion, space-borne imaging radar to produce highly accurate topographic maps of the Earth’s surface, and nuclear space power supply systems for satellites. His last project before retiring involved developing a series of solidstate power amplifiers for the Herschel Space Observatory, to be launched in 2007.

Even though Ferber retired from JPL, he hasn’t retired from engineering and plans to continue working as a consultant while putting more time into another hobby he started at a young age. “I bought my first plane, a Piper Cub, while I was a student at Pitt and have been flying ever since.”

With his grandchildren just a short flight away in Idaho, he’s hoping they will catch the same interest in engineering that he did at a young age. “Considering all the ways engineering impacts our lives, I think it’s a great career path for today’s kids to pursue.”

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Greg Coticchia (BSIE ’82) was one of five Pittsburgh executives to receive the CEO of the Year award in 2005 from the Pittsburgh Technology Council. His company, LogicLibrary, is a leading provider of software services that enable companies to manage and reuse software development assets.

Alex Ellenbogen (BSIE ’44) received an honorary lifetime membership to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants in appreciation and recognition of his 50 years

in the profession. Formerly managing partner, Ellenbogen is of counsel for CrawfordEllenbogen LLC, the Pittsburgh accounting firm his father cofounded in 1941. Ellenbogen was an engineer before he entered the field Ellenbogen of accounting, and he earned a master’s degree in industrial engineering from Columbia University. He is also a life member of the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants and is a published author of two murder mysteries.

Michael Fasolka (BSMSE ’94) was awarded one of 58 Presidential Early Career Awards in Science and Engineering for 2004—the nation’s highest honor for professionals who are at the outset of their independent research careers.

Fasolka works for the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md. He was recognized for “experimental and theoretical studies of nanostructured polymer films and for investigations further extending the power of

The September alumni reception at Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Mich. also served as an opportunity for Dean Holder to congratulate David Marinaro (BSME ’71) on his retirement after more than 30 years at Ford. Holder presented Marinaro with a special plaque recognizing his commitment to Pitt through his service to the school as a lead recruiter, membership in the Department of Mechanical Engineering Visiting Committee, and assistance with the Pitt racing team’s alumni receptions in Detroit during the annual Formula SAE competition.

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Waste coal is less expensive than run-off mine coal, Metzler explains. “The waste-coal combustion equipment … makes this plant unique from other coal plants. It allows us to burn poor-quality fuel at a very competitive price in an environmentally acceptable manner.”

After earning his BSEE in 1958, Ferber joined Westinghouse Research Laboratories, where he worked in semiconductor and nuclear research. At the time, the military was conducting extensive nuclear weapons testing, and Westinghouse was involved in developing radiation detectors for the underground tests. “This was exciting work,” Ferber recalls, “because it was such a new field of science.” Developing the sensors was especially challenging, he said. “The trick was to get the sensors to measure and transmit the radiation spectra and levels in a matter of microseconds, before being vaporized!”

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business—it’s a good investment because waste coal is cheaper and it has positive economic impacts on the local community.” Imler continues, “During the building process, we had some 2,300 local workers on site daily.”

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Career Award from Acting Deputy Secretary of Commerce David A. Sampson (left) and Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Marburger.

N E W S next-generation scanned probe microscopy techniques with exquisitely designed structures providing quantitative measures of chemical, mechanical, and optoelectronic nanoscale material properties.” He credits the work he did as a Pitt undergraduate with Professor Anna C. Balazs as “the foundation for some of the work for which I was cited.”

ENGINEERING NEWS

Anu Gupta (BSMSE ’03), a PhD student at Clemson University, was awarded one of three South Carolina Space Grant Consortium Graduate Student Research Program (GSRP) grants. The program is designed to help meet the continuing needs of the aeronautics and space effort by increasing the number of highly trained scientists and engineers in aerospace, space science, space applications, and space technology. The GSRP awards fellowships for graduate study leading to research-based master’s or doctoral degrees in the fields of science, mathematics, and engineering.

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The Diversity Committee of the Engineers Week Steering Committee selected Enrique Bazán-Arias (BSCE ’95) as one of the New Faces of Engineering 2005. Sponsored by the National Engineers Week Foundation, New Faces recognizes 14 engineers age 30 or younger who have worked in the field from two to five years and have demonstrated outstanding abilities in their chosen disciplines.

The recognition highlights Bazán-Arias’ accomplishments in the field of engineering as well as his contributions to the community. Bazán-Arias is a project engineer at Paul C. Rizzo Associates in Pittsburgh. According to a National Engineering Week Foundation press release, “Bazán-Arias is the very essence of engineering as a global force.

Born in Mexico to Peruvian parents, Bazán-Arias has been responsible for the marketing, design, and execution of projects in a dozen countries. Among the most significant are transportation systems, such as the Pittsburgh International Airport’s underground train, and seismic upgrades, such as the Saluda Dam Remediation Project— the nation’s largest active dam project—in Columbia, South Carolina.”

Robert O. Agbede (BSE ’79, MSMIN ’81) was honored as a Torch Lighter at the 20th Annual Black Extravaganza & Trailblazer Awards gala in March at the Carnegie Museum.

The gala, hosted by Pittsburgh’s Renaissance Publications, recognized local achievers with a Kennedy Center-style presentation followed by a soul and spice food reception.

Agbede is president and CEO of ATS-Chester Engineers in Moon Township, Pa. He established the Robert O. Agbede Student Award and the Faculty Award for Diversity in the

During the summer of 2005, Sara Doll (BSBEG ’04) accompanied representatives of Engineering World Health on a trip to Nicaragua. She, along with 16 other bioengineers from around the world, assessed and helped repair facilities and equipment at a children’s hospital in Managua. Doll worked on devices such as ventilators, infant incubators, heating lamps, centrifuges, and cardiac monitors. She is currently a medical device reviewer at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

We’re sorry to announce the passing of…

Sara Doll stands beside the medical equipment she assessed and repaired at a children’s hospital in Managua, Nicaragua, during a summer 2005 trip with Engineering World Health.

School of Engineering to provide crucial financial support to gifted African American engineering students and recognize faculty members who demonstrate outstanding effort in promoting diversity by recruiting and retaining African American engineering students. In addition, the ATS-Chester Engineers Scholarship and Fellowship supports students as they further their studies in the field of engineering.

Fred Hoaglin (BSIE ’68) was named Man of the Year by the three Presbyterian churches on Hilton Head Island, S.C., for his extensive involvement in the community. He teaches a 7th grade Sunday school class, is a member of the Board of Directors for the Providence Children’s Center, and he recently helped form a Hispanic outreach program called Ministerio Evangelista Betesda. He and his wife, Jan, a 1964 Pitt School of Nursing graduate, have completed five mission trips to Honduras to administer medical services and assist with construction projects (putting his engineering degree to good use!). Additionally, Hoaglin serves on the board of the Beaufort County Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

Michael A. Gross (BSCE ’30), at the age of 98. In recognition of Mr. Gross’s 50-plus-year career as a civil engineer, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering named him a distinguished alumnus in 1996. The meeting room of the student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) at Pitt was named for Mr. Gross and displays one of his oil paintings, an interest he took up after retirement. He worked for Blaw Knox Corp.; Richardson, Gordon and Associates; and the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad, was a lifetime member of ASCE and past president of the Pittsburgh chapter, and received the first ASCE meritorious service award, which was named in his honor.

Clarke Bigler (BSMEE ’50) of Reading, Pa., on July 30, 2005.

Robert L. Johnson (BSChE ’54) of Greenwich, Conn., on Dec 16, 2004.

John Koenig (BSEE ’48), of Canton, Ohio, on June 6, 2005.

Kenneth L. Landon (MSCHE ’47), of Springfield, Mass., on August 5, 2005.

Dean Holder surprised Joe Guthrie (BSMEE ‘59) and his wife, Greta (CAS ‘55), at the Houston Alumni Reception this summer. The Guthries met at Pitt and were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.

Aaron Conley (right), executive director of development and alumni relations, presented the Guthries with a commemorative plaque.

The Association of Energy Engineers named Randolph L. Haines (BSIE ’76) the 2004 International Energy Manager of the Year.

Haines, who serves as energy manager for Thomas Jefferson University and the Jefferson Health System in Philadelphia, was selected for his progressive energy management program, which advocates the importance of saving energy.

Jim Hall (MSME ’58) poses in full Pitt gear next to the Pitt Panther he carved out of a log using a chainsaw.

After completing his research in David Vorp’s lab in the Department of Bioengineering, Jonathan Vande Geest (PhD ’05) joined the faculty of the University of Arizona Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, where he is an assistant professor in the tenure stream.

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the Presidential Early

Two engineering alumni and one professor are winners of 2005 Carnegie Science Center Awards for Excellence.

Pittsburgh Technology Council presented the Start-up Entrepreneur Award to Keith LeJeune (BSChE ’94, MSChE ’96), cofounder of Agentase LLC. LeJeune is conducting work on the discovery and creation of chemical sensors for detection of chemical weapons of mass destruction. Paul Arch (MSMSE ’98) received the Advanced Manufacturing Award for his consistent, proven leadership and facilitation of cutting-edge technologies.

Arch is a research fellow in the styrenics technology group at NOVA Chemicals in Moon Township, Pa. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Marlin H. Mickle also received an award (see Around the School, page 10). The Carnegie Science Center Awards for Excellence recognize and promote outstanding science and technology achievement in Western Pennsylvania.

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N E W S A L U M N I Michael Fasolka receives

Joseph Muscatello (BSIE ’87) was recently hired as vice president of business development in the public finance department of Arthurs Lestrange, a leading financial firm in Pittsburgh. Muscatello began his career in public finance in 1991 when he joined RRZ Public Markets as an associate. In 1997, Muscatello and four of his coworkers purchased RRZ. In 2003, he and his partners sold the business to JPMorgan Securities. Muscatello also holds a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Pittsburgh.

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Pex again hosted this year’s golf outing on July 18 at Diamond Run Golf Club in Sewickley, Pa. The sultry day didn’t keep you away—about 100 School of Engineering alumni, faculty, and friends attended!

A special thanks to our sponsors …

Team Results

Blue & Gold Sponsors 84 Lumber Co. American Bridge Vocollect

First Place, Gross Score Donald Zielinski (friend) Rick Reynolds (BSMET ’84, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown) Rob D’Arrigo (friend) Al Varga (friend)

Beverage Station Sponsor The IPR Group of Companies Putting Green Sponsor Controls Link Inc. Hole Sponsors Aker Kvaerner Bridges and Company Inc. Michael Baker Corp.

Student Golf Sponsor Ellwood Quality Steel Co. Robert C. Yowan (BSME ’49)

First Place, Net Score Kevin Toth (BSCE ’01) Bill West (BSCE ’98) Jim Gruntz (BSME ’98) Ron Cortes (BSCE ’94)

Second Place Keith Malinoski (BSME ’82) Len Raffa (BSCE ’73) Len Zapf (BSEE ’71) Glenn Zaborowski (BSEE ’81) Third Place Don Lazzari (friend) Andres Viduya (friend) Ryan Zoschg (BSEE ’95) Ken Kolenik (friend)

Skills Results Putting Contest Keith Malinoski putted a hole-in-one to qualify for the final round.

He came within inches of winning the $5,000 prize.

Closest to Pin Frank Avbel (BSCE ’73) David Beachler (BSChE ’70) Minking Chyu (faculty) Rob D’Arrigo (friend) Mike Lovell (faculty) Bryan Morreale (BSChE ’99, MSChE ’02)

Longest Drive Craig Fraley (friend)

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Fifth Annual Alumni Golf Outing Longest Putt Al Varga (friend) Straightest Drive Mike Lovell (faculty) Longest Putt Len Zapf (BSEE ’71) Visit www.engr.pitt.edu/alumni for more photos!

Last Place David Beachler (BSChE ’70) David Missenda (BSChE ’00) Ed King (BSME ’00) Heather Lenart Silver (BSChE ’01)

ENGINEERING NEWS

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… and to our prize donors.

Bravo! Cucina Italiana Diamond Run Golf Club Improv Pittsburgh Men’s Warehouse Olive Garden Italian Restaurant Panera Bread Pittsburgh CLO Pittsburgh Pirates Quaker Steak & Lube Rock Bottom Restaurants Inc. SouthSide Works Cinema Southwest Airlines Starbucks Coffee The Pitt Shop The Book Center Zenergy Consulting Inc.

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Homecoming 2005 Honoring the Classes of 1955, 1965, 1980, and 1995

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1) Salisa L. Berrien (BSME ’91; fifth

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from right) presented Dean Gerald D. Holder with a plaque honoring Karl Lewis’ work with diversity in the school. Lewis (fifth from left) founded the Engineering Impact Program (Pitt IEP). Sponsored through Pennsylvania’s Act 101, the program recruits, retains, and helps underrepresented and economically disadvantaged students graduate.

2) Reunion Class of 1955 (l to r): Dean Holder, John Dudash (BSCE), Jim Hainley (BSCE), and Bill Coogan (BSCE)

3) Jake Katz (BSEE ’49) meets with current Pex students and alumni. Katz is an original founder of the group started more than 55 years ago. The group chose as its name the electrical term used in transmission line calculations.

Pex signifies “Pittsburgh Engineering Exponents,” as its identification for the future. In 1999, Dean Holder revived the group and the school has been inducting new members ever since.

before the Pitt vs. Syracuse game, alumni and families gathered for Breakfast at Benedum. Despite the cold and damp weather, nearly 60 people were in attendance

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throughout the morning.

More Homecoming 2005 photos are available online at www.engr.pitt.edu/alumni/PhotoGallery.

4) Reunion Class of 1965 (l to r): F. Don Freeburn

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On the morning of October 22,

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(BSME), Tom Cain (BSEE), Ron Hoelzeman (BSEE), and Roy Marangoni (MSME) 5) Reunion Class of 1980 (l to r): Frank Marx (MSME), Meva M. Justice (BSEE), Karen Joll Dicks (BSChE), Ted Batt (MSME), Ken Balkey (MSME), Frank Bursic (BSEE), and Bob Enick (BSChE)

The Office of Development and Alumni Relations has been growing. Recent additions include Sonia Bembic, director of marketing and communications; Kristen Bires, director of

alumni relations; and Donald Shields, director of corporate relations. Biographical information about the office’s entire staff is available online at www.engr.pitt.edu/alumni/odar.html.

Office of Development and Alumni Relations staff (back row, l to r): Donald Shields, Jenn Welton, and Aaron Conley; (front row) Sarah Calugar, Sonia

6) Reunion Class of 1995: Shawn Debski (BSME)

Bembic, Peter-John Leone,

and Christina Debski (BSME)

and Kristen Bires

7) The School of Engineering celebrated Homecoming 2005 with a kickoff party honoring the Classes of 1955, 1965, 1980, and 1995 at the Carnegie Museum Hall of Architecture. Here, guests gather with Dean Holder.

8) New Pex inductees

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O F

P I T T S B U R G H

School of Engineering CORPORATE AFFILIATES PROGRAM

Corporate competitiveness requires your business to seek every possible advantage in the marketplace. Successful businesses become successful by attracting and retaining great people and by accessing new ideas and technologies to stay ahead of the competition. The Corporate Affiliates Program (CAP) at the University of Pittsburgh School of Engineering offers member companies the chance to recruit top students, to interact with world-class faculty, and to develop a direct relationship with one of the nation’s top engineering schools. Member companies also receive enhanced visibility through the school’s publications and Web site. Current members include: Westinghouse Electric Co. (Founding Member)

itaas

Aker Kvaerner

PPG Industries

Eaton Corp.

H.B. Maynard and Co.

Ellwood Group Inc.

Mitsubishi Electric Power Products Inc.

II-VI Inc. For more information about CAP, visit the CAP Web site at www.engr.pitt.edu/industry/cap.html or call Don Shields, director of corporate relations, at 412-624-8120.

Recruiting — Research — Recognition

School of Engineering 240 Benedum Hall Pittsburgh, PA 15261-2224 www.engr.pitt.edu