Pitt Engineer - Spring 2007

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Organizations with long histories, like the School of Engineering, all have the ability to point to their longevity as one of their greatest strengths. The first engineering degree at Pitt was awarded in 1846, making us one of this nation’s first postsecondary engineering institutions. There are more than 300 accredited engineering schools in this country today; however, few of them can point to nearly two centuries of tradition and accomplishments the way we can.

The inherent danger among well-established organizations— whether they are companies, schools, or other nonprofit entities—is complacency. The willingness to accept the status quo as satisfactory has signaled the demise of many such places. Some find the fortitude to bounce back, while others quietly fade away into mediocrity. This reality is ever-present in academe, as we know there will always be students out there who want to get a college education. And the collegial model of shared governance between faculty and administration can result in more lengthy decision-making processes, compared to the private sector. These and other similar factors can easily erode any school’s efforts to implement change, enhance the quality of its program, or aspire to be anything Gerald D. Holder, much beyond what it is today.

of this upward trend was the announcement in the fall about one of our seniors being named a Rhodes scholar (see page 13). No other undergraduate engineering student in the nation was among the 32 Rhodes honorees this year.

Our faculty also are gaining considerably more recognition in scholarly outlets, including in some of the nation’s most respected research publications. Two examples highlighted in this issue include two of our bioengineering faculty members’ being named to the prestigious Scientific American 50 and a chemical engineering professor’s having two articles published in the premier journal Science in the same month (see On the Cover and pages 6–7).

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Reaching a higher level of performance requires more than just the dedication and ability of our faculty, staff, and students. Much of our success in recent years has been triggered by the unprecedented level of support from our alumni and friends (see page 5). With greater philanthropic support coming in for our students, our faculty, and our facilities, the School of Engineering is now able to look toward the future with the kind of ambition necessary to reach the next level. And the most critical element for continuing our momentum U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering is the upcoming renovation and Over the past decade, Pitt and the expansion of Benedum Hall. At this School of Engineering have clearly been on the opposite point, the plans for the first phase of this undertaking are end of this continuum, as almost any performance complete, and we will soon be seeing the transformation benchmark you could consider has followed an upward of our facilities get under way. path. Most visible among these has been Pitt’s overall rise The fall issue of this magazine will have extensive coverin the popular U.S. News & World Report rankings. The age of the plans along with photos and drawings illustratspring/summer issue of the magazine always includes a ing just how different the School of Engineering will be ranking of the nation’s top 50 public universities. In 1997, once this project is complete. The scale of this project to Pitt did not even appear on this list; however, it broke in the enhance our learning environment will convince all alumni following year at 48th and has risen faster than any other that we are dedicated to elevating the reputation of our school on the list, currently holding the 19th position. All programs and to continuing to move forward as a leading Pitt alumni should take great pride in this remarkable trend, national engineering school. especially because it reflects positively on the value of your degree, regardless of what year you earned it.

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In the School of Engineering, we have seen similar improvements during the past decade in many areas, including growth not only in student enrollment but also the overall quality of incoming students. Just one example

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

Dedication and Good Timing................... 2

Sonia Bembic Director of Marketing & Communications/Editor

IntraFirm Program..................................16

Kelly Kaufman Communications Manager/Editor Don Henderson Designer

Departments

Chuck Dinsmore Production Coordinator

Development News................................ 5

Sarah Jordan Editorial Assistant

Around the School............................... 6

Niki Kapsambelis Contributing Writer

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

2006 IABC Golden Triangle Award of Excellence, Magazines: 4-Color Design 2005 Western Pennsylvania Printing Industry Award, Best of Category Have a comment or story idea for Engineering News?

Contact Sonia Bembic at 412-624-2640, or send an e-mail to sbembic@engr.pitt.edu Visit our Web site at www.engr.pitt.edu

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Alumni Profile Pages.......................... 17 Distinguished Alumni......................... 21 Alumni Notes.................................... 24

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.

For information on University equal opportunity and affirmative action programs and complaint/grievance procedures, please contact the University of Pittsburgh, Office of Affirmative Action, 901 William Pitt Union, 3959 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15260; 412-648-7860.

Published in cooperation with the Department of University Marketing Communications. UMC6163-0607 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.

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www.engr.pitt.edu

On the Cover

In the December 2006 issue of Scientific American magazine, William Wagner (left) and colleague Michael Sacks were named one of the 2006 Scientific American 50 for their research contributions to the development and biomechanical analyses of novel cell microintegrated biodegradable scaffolds that mimic many of the critical properties of cardiovascular tissues. They are pictured here in front of a biaxial testing device, which examines the mechanical properties of biological tissues along perpendicular axes.

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M E S S A G E D E A N ’ S

Reaching the Next Level

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Dedication and Good Timing:

Jurenko Knows Success Comes to Those with Both

J

ohn Jurenko was the type of boy who loved to tinker.

He fixed motors and clocks, and in the evenings

he would sit on the floor with his father and pore

over the blueprints that the elder Jurenko, a steelworker, brought home from Bethlehem Steel.

him throughout his career. What he hadn’t learned in college he was able to learn by applying the thinking skills he had honed at Pitt. He also found a good place to apply the dreaded freshman English, as well as some speech and technical writing classes he took as electives.

He knew from a young age that he wanted to be an engineer, and the shop teacher at his high school in Rankin, Pa., spent extra time with his better students—Jurenko among them—showing them mechanical drawings.

“I was an engineer who could communicate, and that’s really what it takes to rise through the ranks in engineering management,” he explains. “The biggest challenge was that I wound up being the supervisor of people who were older than me. That was psychologically tough.”

So when Jurenko won financial aid to the University of Pittsburgh, the School of Engineering was a nearly preordained choice.

“I received a senatorial scholarship that helped pay my tuition,” he recalls. “I didn’t have transportation, so I rode the trolley car back and forth to school every day.”

Now retired from ADTRAN, the company he cofounded after transitioning from technical work to marketing, Jurenko credits the rigors of his undergraduate education with giving him the foundation on which he built his success.

Class work was challenging, especially the literature and writing curriculum that constituted freshman English.

“All the courses, to me, were difficult,” recalls Jurenko, who earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1956. “I remember specifically freshman English, which was a killer. In those days, I think they used it as a way to weed out the students.”

Though Jurenko was fresh out of high school when he enrolled, many of his Pitt classmates were Korean War veterans in their early to mid-20s who attended college on the G.I. Bill.

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“They were very dedicated; they knew what they wanted, and they worked for it. And that was a good influence on me, too,” he says.

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John Jurenko sits in the Benedum Hall laboratory that bears his name.

The Jurenkos have established the John A. and Ruth R. Jurenko Endowed Professorship in Computer Engineering, the John A. and Ruth R. Jurenko Computer Engineering Program Development Fund, the John A. Jurenko Graduate Fellowship in Electrical and Computer Engineering, the John A. Jurenko Facilities Endowment for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the John A. Jurenko Endowed Scholarship, and the John A. Jurenko Computer Architecture Laboratory in Computer Engineering.

‘An Engineer Who Could Communicate’ Timing played a key role in helping Jurenko launch his postcollegiate career. He accepted a position as a junior engineer with Philco’s Terminal Equipment Laboratory in Philadelphia, rising quickly through the ranks to become the youngest department manager in company history.

The laboratory used digital technology in its research and development of cryptographic equipment, modems, multiplexers, and error-correcting equipment, and the knowledge Jurenko gained in working there would benefit

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Though Jurenko didn’t meet with open resistance, he was sure it was lurking in the minds of some employees. To counter that possibility, he threw himself into his job.

“I never asked anybody to do things that I couldn’t do myself. I worked longer hours than they did; I did things that they wouldn’t do,” he says. “I didn’t do it to build respect. I did it from fear that I might fail.”

Migrating South In 1969, a year after being named manager, he joined his boss and marketing director in breaking off from Philco to start their own company, Information Instruments. For three years, the company developed, produced, and sold data transmission test sets and modems. But when the economy slowed, they lacked the cash flow to keep going, and they sold the company in 1972, winding up no poorer for the experience.

At that point, Jurenko switched career paths, taking a job as the marketing director for the communications equipment business area of Teledynamics. In this role, his technical expertise served him well.

“I never had fear that the customers knew more about the business area than I did,” he points out. He was also able to draw on his early years at Philco, when the company required managers to write proposals and make presentations to get new government contracts.

Jurenko traded his Northern roots for his adopted hometown of Huntsville, Ala., in 1975, moving to start-up modem company Universal Data Systems as a national sales manager. At the time, the company had 35 people and sales of less than $1 million. Jurenko’s position brought stock options, but no pay raise. By 1986, Motorola had purchased Universal Data, and sales had grown to $100 million; the stock options took on added value.

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news But Jurenko does not attribute his generosity to a sense of philanthropy. Rather, his reasons are far more personal.

“I want to see my engineering school become one of the best in the country, and I have the financial resources to help do this,” he says simply.

Jurenko and his grandson, Adam, talk shop with graduate student Samuel Dickerson, teaching assistant in the Jurenko lab. (bottom) Jurenko with John A. Jurenko Professor of Computer Engineering Steve Levitan

Leaps and Bounds

Jurenko’s last hurrah with a start-up company also came He believes that engineering schools can benefit from in 1986, when he cofounded ADTRAN, a company that the advice of alumni who are working in industry and can designs and produces high-speed data communications offer ideas from the field. products. As vice president of sales and marketing, “I think that alumni working in industry, when they see Jurenko oversaw tremendous growth, and the company trends moving way out in front of what the engineering remains an industry leader today. Under his direction, school is offering, ought to provide that ADTRAN grew from no sales and seven “ I want to see feedback to the school so they can adapt employees to $250 million in sales and 1,000 employees by the time he retired in my engineering their curriculum,” Jurenko says.

1997. He remains active in the industry by school become And as he reflects on all the time he consulting with small companies, sharing devotes now to the causes he supports, his business savvy as a member of the one of the best he says simply: “I’m busier than when boards of directors of many start-ups. in the country ...” I worked.”

“In the undergraduate school, the courses gave me the basics of both communication and technical skills—but the engineering courses taught me how to think and determine what the right path was in any endeavor,” he says. In building his career, “there was a lot of hard work and a lot of luck. And when an opportunity shows itself, you take advantage of it.”

Jurenko is a long-serving member of the School of Engineering’s Board of Visitors, and he received a Distinguished Alumni Award in 1999 from what is now the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). In 2005, he also was inducted into the Cathedral of Learning Society, Pitt’s honorary group of alumni and friends recognized for cumulative lifetime giving of $1 million or more.

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Jurenko took many small steps to get to this level, first becoming an annual fund donor, then moving on to establish endowed funds to support undergraduate scholarships, a graduate fellowship, a professorship, and an unrestricted facilities fund for the ECE department.

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Jurenko and his wife, Ruth, support several organizations, such as Huntsville’s art museum, botanical gardens, and symphony orchestra. At least twice a year, he returns to Pittsburgh as part of his Board of Visitors duties.

By Aaron Conley, Executive Director, Development and Alumni Relations

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New Year’s Eve marked an amazing milestone in the history of the School of Engineering. As of December 31, we had officially surpassed our ambitious $100 million capital campaign goal. Perhaps even more impressive, the goal was surpassed six months before the planned campaign end date of June 30, 2007. The support of so many generous alumni and friends during this campaign has truly transformed the School of Engineering, while it has also demonstrated just how committed our supporters are to empowering this special place with the resources needed to be an elite engineering school.

The University of Pittsburgh first entered this campaign with an overall goal of $500 million, and a School of Engineering goal of $36.25 million. These figures were unprecedented in our history, but absolutely necessary to break into the top tier of American research institutions. After an impressive start, it was realized these targets underestimated the level of passionate support Pitt’s alumni and friends were willing to dedicate to such an effort. The School of Engineering’s goal was raised to $50 million in early 2002, and raised yet again to the current $100 million in 2003 when the University announced a doubling of its overall campaign goal from $500 million to $1 billion.

While the University celebrated the success last fall of surpassing the $1 billion mark nearly a year early, it also raised the bar once again with an astounding new goal of $2 billion! Less than a dozen other universities are currently engaged in a campaign of $2 billion or more, placing Pitt in the exclusive company of elite private institutions like Columbia and Cornell and premier public schools, including Michigan and Virginia.

The recurrent setting of ever-higher campaign goals may leave some to wonder … just how supportive can Pitt engineering alumni and friends be, and how long can it

Total Gifts

Total Cash

Peer Group Average = $5,462,619 Pitt Engineering = $11,800,077

Peer Group Average = $4,091,962 Pitt Engineering = $10,799,076

(Cash and Pledges)

continue? A recent national survey of philanthropic support for engineering schools partially answers this, suggesting we are well ahead of the pace when it comes to giving. A 2006 benchmarking survey conducted by the Engineering Development Aaron Conley Forum (EDF) found we outperformed a peer group of other similar engineering schools by a margin of more than two to one. Our permanent endowment also showed we have a considerably stronger resource base, compared to this peer group of 25 other engineering schools, which includes institutions like Northwestern, Oklahoma State, LSU, and Delaware.

de v elopment

(Actually, Make That 100 Million)

Like us, nearly all these other institutions are either in a campaign, or likely planning one. Our latest campaign stage, Foundations for Greatness, is not just another attempt at reaching a dollar goal. By accomplishing this newest target, we hope to establish the foundations necessary to be acknowledged as a national leader in engineering education and research. The accomplishments of our students and faculty continue to attract national attention, and a stronger base of support for both these groups is critical for our future success.

Again, to all those alumni and friends who helped us surpass the remarkable $100 million campaign goal, we share heartfelt thanks and appreciation. The impact of your support is Endowment evident throughout the School of (Market Value) Engineering, and we hope even more Peer Group Average = of our alumni and friends will follow $36,160,783 your lead by playing a role in our Pitt Engineering = continued success. $68,611,668

Figures represent fiscal year 2005 For the complete EDF Survey Report, see www.engr.pitt.edu/alumni/odar.html

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Thanks a Million!

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The department was ranked sixth in the 2005 Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index (FSPI) for bioengineering, as reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education. FSPI evaluates academic departments based on the following scholarship items:

• percentage of faculty with a book publication • unique book publications per faculty member • percentage of faculty with a journal publication • journal publications per faculty • percentage of faculty with a journal publication cited by another work • citations per faculty • citations per paper/publication • percentage of faculty getting a new grant • new grants per faculty • total value of new grants per faculty • average amount of grant • percentage of faculty with an award • awards per faculty

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Other schools ranked in the top 10 included California Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania, Rice University, and Stanford University.

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David A. Vorp, associate professor of bioengineering and surgery, has been appointed to the editorial board of the Annals of Vascular Surgery. He recently was awarded a two-year R21 grant for $404,748 in total costs from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for his project titled BioVorp engineered Urethral Augmentation. This project is in collaboration with Michael Chancellor and Naoki Yoshimura from the Pitt School of Medicine’s Department of Urology. The overall goal of this work is to develop a tissue-engineered urethral wrap using stem cells and a natural matrix material for urethral disorders.

The wrap is believed to be able to restore a damaged continence mechanism and to mechanically support and improve urethral function. In addition, Vorp was named program chair of the 2008 Summer Bioengineering Conference, to be held in Marco Island, Fla.

Michael Sacks, William Kepler Whiteford Professor and director of the Engineered Tissue Mechanics and Mechanobiology Laboratory, has been named technical editor of the Journal of Biomechanical Engineering. His five-year term will begin July 1, 2007.

school the Lance Davidson, assistant professor, has been invited to speak at the Fourth American Physical Society Workshop on Opportunities in Biological Physics, organized by the Division of Biological Physics.

Sacks

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) publications board has approved Richard Debski, assistant professor of bioengineering and codirector of the Shoulder Dynamics Laboratory, Robotics Group, and ACL Biomechanics Laboratory at the Musculoskeletal Research Center, as a new associate editor for the Journal of Biomechanical Engineering. Debski’s three-year term coincides with Sacks’ tenure as the new editor of the journal.

Harvey Borovetz—professor and chair of bioengineering, professor of chemical and petroleum engineering, and Robert L. Hardesty Professor in the School of Medicine’s Department of Surgery—and Sanjeev Shroff—professor and Gerald McGinnis Chair in Bioengineering; professor of medicine; senior investigator, Magee-Womens Research Institute; and core faculty member of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine—received awards at the 11th Annual Carnegie Science Center Awards for Excellence, held May 2, 2007, at the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh. Borovetz received the Life Sciences Award and Shroff received the University/Post-Secondary Educator Award.

Shroff recently was appointed a member of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Institutional Training Mechanism (NITM) Review Committee that will be responsible for evaluating all NITMs, including T32 grants.

At the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Atlanta, Ga., in October 2006, Pravat K. Mandal, assistant professor of bioengineering and psychiatry, presented his findings that the inhaled anesthetics halothane and isoflurane encourage clumping of beta-amyloid protein, as does the commonly used intravenous anesthetic propofol, at least at higher concentrations. The findings were published in the October 28, 2006, issue of New Scientist.

Tin-Kan Hung, professor of bioengineering and neurological surgery, served on the International Advisory Committee for IAWS-CFD 2007: Indo-Australian Workshop on a CFD Approach on Fluid Flow, Heat, and Mass Transfer.

Organized by the Indian Institute of Technology Department of Mathematics, IAWS-CFD 2007 was held in Roorkee, India, in April.

Chemical and Petroleum Engineering James T. Cobb Jr., associate professor emeritus, was the principal author of the lead article in the January 2007 issue of Chemical Engineering Progress. The article is titled “The Future of Chemical Engineering—An Educational Perspective.” Among other efforts, it describes the ongoing work of several American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) entities: the Education & Accreditation Committee; the Professional Development Committee; and the Career and Education Operating Council, of which Cobb was chair in 2006. The article also highlights the department’s Pillars of Chemical Engineering project. Additionally, Cobb presented the two-hour tutorial “Production of Synthesis Gas by Biomass Gasification” at the 2007 AIChE Spring National Meeting in Houston, Texas.

Dale Keairns, former lecturer and member of the department’s advisory board, is AIChE’s 2007 president-elect.

Keairns also works for the Pittsburgh office of Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), which supports the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory.

Tamer Ibrahim, assistant professor, has been nominated for and has accepted a three-year term as an associate editor of the new International Journal of Antennas and Propagation.

Steven Abramowitch, research assistant professor in bioengineering and codirector of the Tissue Mechanics and Mechanobiology Laboratory, delivered a keynote lecture at the opening ceremony of the XVth International Conference on Mechanics in Medicine and Biology, held in Singapore in December 2006. Abramowitch’s lecture was titled “New Bioengineering Approaches for Management of Soft Tissue Injuries.”

Keairns

Di Gao, assistant professor, received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for “Design and Development of Super Water- and Oil-Repellent Surfaces by Topographic Manipulation.” The outcome of the research will have practical significance Gao in enabling technologies to make green construction materials such as self-cleaning windowpanes, anti-fog glass, and contamination-free surfaces. He also received an American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund grant for investigating the stability of interfacial films in crude oil emulsions—employing nanotechnology to assist in understanding the process of destabilization and breakdown of oil emulsions to remove water during the production of crude oil.

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J. Karl Johnson, William Kepler Whiteford Professor, and John T. Yates Jr., R.K. Mellon Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Physics and director of the University Surface Science Center, have released a new book, Molecular Physical Chemistry for Engineers.

The work of Anna Balazs, Distinguished University Professor and Robert von der Luft Professor, was featured twice during the month of November 2006 in Science magazine, the world’s leading journal of original scientific research, global news, and commentary, which publishes about 8 percent of the papers it receives.

Balazs was lead author of the article “Nanoparticle Polymer Composites: Where Two Small Worlds Meet” in the November 17, 2006, issue and coauthor of an article about pulsating gels in the November 3, 2006, issue.

She also wrote a paper with several undergraduates that was published in the April 22, 2007, issue of Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

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Kent Harries, assistant professor, has been elected a fellow of the American Concrete Institute (ACI) in recognition of his

Associate Professor Leonard W. Casson helped organize the international conference Disinfection 2007: Current Practice and Future Trends in Disinfection: Water,

Additionally, Liang was recently invited to give a short course on land surface modeling in the Department of Hydraulic and Ocean Engineering at the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. She also was invited to give a seminar on Spatial Properties of Soil Moisture and Data Assimilation at the Institute of Hydrological Sciences at the National Central University in Taiwan.

Julie Vandenbossche, assistant professor, recently was awarded a grant from the Federal Highway Administration to use falling weight deflectometer (FWD) data for the mechanisticempirical design and analysis of pavements.

As PI for Pitt, Vandenbossche will work with ApTech, Michigan State University, and Vandenbossche Construction Technology Laboratories, Inc. to establish guidelines for back calculating material properties within a pavement structure using FWD data. Vandenbossche led the submission of a joint proposal by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Mascaro Sustainability Initiative, along with Michigan Technological University, the University of Utah, and ApTech, to the U.S. Department of Transportation in pursuit of a Recycled Materials Resource Center (RMRC). The goal of RMRC is to conduct research and provide technology transfer on the use of recycled materials for construction and maintenance of transportation infrastructure. The center will build on the department’s sustainability initiative already under way.

the

school Radisav Vidic, chair and professor, recently was awarded two research grants from the U.S. DOE and one research grant from Corning. The U.S. DOE grants will be used to study a new approach for the removal of hydrogen sulfide from the fuel gas generated through coal gasification and the potential of impaired waters to be used in recirculating cooling towers in coal-fired thermoelectric power plants.

The grant from Corning will be used to evaluate novel materials and reactors for the control of mercury emissions from coal-fired thermoelectric power plants. During the past year, Vidic published eight peer-reviewed journal papers. He presented several papers at Vidic Carbon 2006, the International Carbon Conference held in Aberdeen, Scotland, in July 2006 and at the American Water Works Association Annual Conference and Exposition held in San Antonio, Texas, in June 2006.

Piervincenzo Rizzo, assistant professor, was added to the ninth edition of Who’s Who in Science and Engineering.

He and Francesco Lanza di Scalea from the University of California at San Diego published a chapter titled “WaveletBased Unsupervised and Supervised Learning Algorithms for Ultrasonic Structural Monitoring of Waveguides” in Progress in Smart Materials and Structures (Nova Science Publishers, December 2006). The chapter describes an algorithm for the structural health monitoring of civil structures (with emphasis on pipelines, rails, and steel cables) by means of ultrasonic waves.

Xu Liang, associate professor, recently was awarded two grants from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Association (NOAA) and NASA. NOAA will lead the study Impacts of Assimilating Remotely Sensed Snow on the Prediction of Orographic Precipitation and Streamflow in the Liang Western United States.

As principal investigator (PI) for Pitt on this project, Liang will lead the work on snow and snowmelt processes and the development of a new data assimilation framework for assimilating remotely sensed snow, while Ruby Leung, PI of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., will lead the effort on climate modeling. As PI for Pitt, Liang will lead the work on developing new methodology to improve NOAA’s hydrologic forecasts.

2006 American Society for Engineering Education Distinguished Service Award, Educational Research and Methods Division.

Vandenbossche also traveled to Priorij Corsendonk in Oud-Turnhout, Belgium, to present a paper at the Sixth International DUT-Workshop on Fundamental Modelling of Design and Performance of Concrete Pavements along with about 25 other people from around the world. While in Belgium, she attended the World Road Association (PIARC) 10th International Symposium on Concrete Roads in Brussels.

Amir Koubaa, academic coordinator, was added to Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers in 2006.

Luis Vallejo’s paper, “Influence of Pile Shape on the Crushable Behavior of Granular Materials around Driven Piles: DEM Analysis”—coauthored

by Sebastian Lobo-Guerrero (MSCE ’02, PhD ’06), geotechnical specialist at American Geotechnical & Environmental Services—was one of four award-winning papers presented at GeoCongress 2006. Geotechnical Engineering in the Information Technology Age was held February 26–March 1 in Atlanta, Ga., and was presented by the GeoInstitute of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Dan Budny, associate professor and academic director of freshman programs, received the

CEE Launches New Programs

Beginning in spring 2007, the department began Beginning spring 2007, the department offering new in programs in mining engineering began and offering new programs in mining engineeringcertifiand transportation engineering. The undergraduate transportation engineering.

The undergraduate certificate program in mining engineering was developed to cate program in mining engineering was developed address the increasing demand for mining engineers address thePennsylvania. increasing demand for mining engiin to Southwestern The graduate program neers in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

The graduate in transportation engineering focuses on a compreprogram in transportation engineering focuseswith on a hensive approach to transportation engineering comprehensive approach to transportation engineeremphasis on three major areas: planning, design, and ing, with emphasis on three major areas: operations.

For additional information, pleaseplanning, e-mail design, and operations.

For additional the department at cee@engr.pitt.edu. information, please e-mail the department at cee@engr.pitt.edu.

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The department will be administering an intergovernmental agreement signed by the University of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT).

This five-year agreement—capped at $25 million—names Pitt as one of the leading institutions in the state that will assist PennDOT in the development and implementation of new technologies and operational strategies in the transportation sector. The terms of the agreement and this preferential treatment were decided based on the past success that PennDOT has had with Pitt’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and on the academic prowess of its faculty members. The department will meet with PennDOT officials to discuss the scope of work and identify projects on an annual basis and as they arise. Such projects might include, but are not limited to, those in the realm of sustainable development, advanced infrastructure systems and infrastructure renewal, and environmental implications of the transportation sector.

Wastewater, Stormwater, Water Reuse and Biosolids, held in Pittsburgh February 4–7, 2007. The Disinfection Committee of the Water Environment Federation, Pennsylvania Water Environment Association, American Water Works Association, International Water Association, International Ozone Association, and International Ultraviolet Association sponsored and helped organize the conference, which provided a forum for water industry professionals concerned with disinfection needs and technologies.

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contributions to the work of ACI. According to the award letter, “At the time of nomination, a Fellow shall have been a Member of the Institute, or a representative of an Organizational or Sustaining Member of the Institute, for at least ten years, including three of the last five years. A Fellow shall have made outstanding contributions Harries Harries to the production or use of concrete materials, products, and structures in the areas of education, research, development, design, construction, or management. In addition, a Fellow shall have made significant contributions to ACI through committees and/or local chapters. A Fellow shall retain that membership rank as long as membership in the Institute is maintained or until elected an Honorary Member.” ACI fellows are highly respected in the concrete community.

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Along with his research, Chen proposed a general training course in optical engineering for all engineering students as well as extracurricular undergraduate workshops in robotics. Such courses will expand the knowledge of engineering students and reach out to people underrepresented in engineering by providing an open and accessible forum.

Guangyong Li joined the department as an assistant professor on January 2, 2007. He completed his PhD at Michigan State University. His research involves the development of an atomic force microscope-based nanorobotic system with an augmented reality interface to precisely manipulate nanomaterials and the use of this system to study the functionalities of cell membrane proteins.

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Alex Jones, assistant professor, was appointed associate editor of the Journal of Low Power Electronics. Additionally, he was appointed to the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Design Automation Advisory Board.

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Jun Yang, assistant professor, gave invited talks on “Dynamic Power and Thermal Monitoring and Management for High-Performance Microprocessors” in Shanghai, China, at Intel Corp.’s Asia-Pacific Research and Development Ltd. and at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Microelectronics.

Jun Yang Additionally, Yang served on the committee for the second Workshop on Introspective Architecture, held in conjunction with the 13th International Symposium on High-Performance Computer Architecture (HPCA-13), in February 2007, and she was appointed track chair for the computer architecture for networking and communications track at the 16th International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks in August 2007.

Needy

Matthew Mehalik, assistant professor and research associate with Pitt’s Learning Research and Development Center, will be teaching a course funded by a grant from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA). The course, Product Realization for Global Opportunities, will take 18 students to Brazil during spring break, where they will collaborate with students at the State University of Campinas.

Andrew Schaefer, associate professor, won an NSF CAREER Award and received the Outstanding Young Industrial Engineer in Education and Industry Award from the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE).

Lisa Maillart, assistant professor, received the IIE Transactions on Quality and Reliability Engineering Best Paper Award.

Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Faculty and student researchers from the department participated in the 2006 fall meeting of the Materials Research Society (MRS), which attracted more than 5,000 delegates and is held annually in Boston, Mass., between November 26 and December 1. Conference contributions included posters, talks, and manuscripts from the groups of faculty members Judith Yang, associate professor and BP America Faculty Fellow; Jennifer Gray, assistant professor; John Leonard, assistant professor; and Jörg Wiezorek, associate professor, William Kepler Whiteford Faculty Fellow, and graduate director.

Jeffrey S. Vipperman, associate professor of mechanical engineering and bioengineering, and Amro El-Jaroudi, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, have been awarded a grant for $566,000 from the Sustainable Infrastructure focus area of the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program. The effort will continue work to develop an automated noise classification system to allow the military to better manage environmental noise around military training and test installations.

Vipperman also is an associate editor of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Journal of Vibration and Acoustics. In addition, he has become a member of the executive committee of the Noise Control and Acoustics Division of ASME. William “Buddy” Clark and William Kepler Whiteford Professor Peyman Givi, professors of mechanical engineering, both were elected fellows of ASME for their significant engineering achievements and contributions to the mechanical engineering profession. Clark’s primary research interest is in the area of smart structures and microsystems. He directs the Vibration and Control Laboratory, in which current research foci include vibration control with variable stiffness and damping materials, energy harvesting, smart materials in microelectromechanical systems, and the use of smart materials in cell biology studies. Givi’s research interests include turbulence, combustion, computational fluid dynamics, propulsion, and stochastic processes. Givi directs the Laboratory for Computational Transport Phenomena and is a previous recipient of the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal.

He was also the keynote speaker at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit and the ASME Annual Meeting.

Clark received a contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for $212,750 for his project, Structures with Reconfigurable Circulatory Systems. The project is funded out of a new DARPA

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Kim LaScola Needy, associate professor, was an invited speaker at Green Buildings and Sustainable Construction Technology: A Roadmap for the Future, a daylong collaborative workshop held in Miami, Fla., this past November. The Institute of Technology Innovation at Florida International University and the Consulate General of Canada cosponsored the workshop, which initiated a global discussion on green building and brought together U.S. and Canadian experts working to advance Florida’s efforts to enhance energy conservation. Needy’s presentation, “The Economic Benefits of Green Buildings: A Comprehensive Case Study,” described the outcomes of a research project completed collaboratively with Robert Ries, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, and sponsored by the School of Engineering’s Mascaro Sustainability Initiative. Results from this research were also recently published in the prestigious journal The Engineering Economist.

Wiezorek co-organized Symposium II: Advanced Intermetallic-Based Alloys and is the lead editor for the symposium proceedings, which are available in electronic form via the MRS Web site (www.mrs.org) and in print as MRS Symposium Proceedings volume 980, to be published in late spring Wiezorek 2007. His collaborative research with Leonard, graduate student Andreas Kulovits, and undergraduate researcher Vincent Sokalski resulted in four presentations in Symposia HH and II at the MRS fall meeting.

Judith Yang

Defense Sciences Office program called Materials Systems for Autonomous Structural Tailoring. Clark’s project in particular is part of a general movement toward morphing systems, or systems that can drastically change their shape on command. Clark is the PI on the project, with Eric Beckman, George Means and Eva M. Bevier Chair in Engineering and codirector of the Mascaro Sustainability Initiative (MSI); Laura Schaefer, associate professor and deputy director of MSI; and Sung Kwon Cho, assistant professor, serving as co-PIs. Anne M. Robertson, associate professor, recently gave two keynote lectures at international conferences about her NIH- and NSF-supported work on cerebral aneurysms.

Her first talk was at the Fifth World Congress of Biomechanics, July 29–August 4, 2006, in Munich, Germany, and the second was at ESNR 06/ICS 06/SSNR 06, September 13–16, 2006, in Geneva, Switzerland.

The International Conference on Mathematical Fluid Mechanics was organized to celebrate the 60th birthday of William Kepler Whiteford Professor Giovanni P. Galdi. The conference will be held in Portugal at the end of May. More than 30 speakers from 12 countries will gather for this event to give talks about Galdi’s career.

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Kevin P. Chen, assistant professor and Paul E. Lego Faculty Fellow, received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award.

Chen’s work involves the latest generation of optic fibers, known as microstructured fibers, which feature a layout of holes positioned around a central core to guide light through the fiber. Unlike previous optic fibers, microstructured fibers notably concentrate light. NSF awarded Chen a five-year, $400,000 grant to enhance the sensitivity, response, and power transfer capabilities of these fibers, potentially expanding their practical use. He plans to achieve this by controlling the shape, geometry, and composition of the central core and the air holes, as well as the material from which the fiber is made.

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N E W S William David Merryman II, who is completing his PhD in bioengineering in Michael Sacks’ lab, has accepted a tenure-track assistant professor position in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Alabama at Birmingham beginning August 1, 2007.

The Mascaro Sustainability Initiative (MSI) sponsored Engineering Sustainability 2007: Innovations that Span Boundaries, which not only featured sustainability concepts but also put those principles into action by taking steps to minimize or offset resources the event consumed. The conference pooled academic, government, and industry experts on green engineering from around the world for the purpose of showcasing the latest science and techniques behind sustainable building and water use. Researchers and engineers from Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere spoke on a variety of topics, including sustainable transportation and water systems, zero-operating-cost buildings, and clean water solutions for developing countries. The conference was held in Pittsburgh April 15–18.

Bioengineering graduate student Silvia Wognum won second place in the student competition at the 43rd Annual Technical Meeting of the Society of Engineering Science at Penn State University for her talk on bladder biomechanics. Wognum is conducting this work in Sacks’ lab.

MSI also received the 2007 Carnegie Science Center Award for Excellence in the environmental category.

Joint MBA Program Now Available to all MS Students The School of Engineering has partnered with the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business to offer joint degree programs. Students may earn a joint MBA/MS in engineering (MSE) degree in any of the engineering disciplines in just two academic years. Study is available full and part time. Previously this degree was only available to students pursuing the MS in bioengineering or industrial engineering, but it now applies to every MS degree in the school. Students are required to apply to and be accepted by both degree programs. Want more information? Visit www.katz.pitt.edu/dual_ms.html.

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BAMPRI to Host International Conference on Microalloyed Steels

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The Basic Metals Processing Research Institute (BAMPRI) will host the Association for Iron & Steel Technology (AIST) International Conference on Microalloyed Steels: Processing, Microstructure, Properties and Performance, July 16–19, 2007, at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in Pittsburgh. This symposium will cover recent applications of microalloying technology to a broad range of products, including plate, pipe, strip, sheet, bar, structurals, and forgings. Papers representing production, fabrication, and end usage will be presented by national and international experts from industry, government, and academia.

The papers will range from fundamental aspects to final applications. The goals of the technical program are to further educate experienced engineers and metallugists, while at the same time providing an introduction to new engineers and students. Practicing engineers and metallurgists in production, fabrication, and end usage; researchers; consultants; professors; and students are encouraged to attend. More information is available online at www.aist.org.

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MSI Hosts its Second International Conference

Office of Diversity The Engineering Office of Diversity is pleased to announce the appointments of two new staff members.

Priya Linson is the new academic advising counselor/ program coordinator for the Pitt Engineering Career Access Program (PECAP) Pre-College Component. Her primary responsibility will be academic advising for the Critical and Analytical Reasoning Enrichment (CARE) and INVESTING NOW programs through counseling, peer mentoring, programming, and recruitment. She will be the main contact for all precollege academic advising for students in both the CARE and INVESTING NOW programs. Linson joined Pitt after four years as a teacher in the New York City public schools. She holds a bachelor’s degree in child development from Tufts University and an MA in English education from Columbia University. She is also working toward her Master of Science in public policy and management at Carnegie Mellon University’s H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management.

Yvette Moore, who has been with the University since August, is a new academic counselor for the Pitt EXCEL Program. Her primary responsibilities include advising Act 101 students and coordinating all peer mentoring efforts within the Pitt EXCEL Program. Moore comes to Pitt from Shippensburg University, where she served as assistant to the director of multicultural affairs and as an Act 101 counselor. Moore has a BSEd in secondary education and an MS in gerontology.

Vinod K. Sharma, a bioengineering graduate student, is one of six winners of the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence BIG IDEA Competition, sponsored by the institute’s Entrepreneurs’ Society. The competition, which sought the best ideas to turn into competitive business plans and businesses, received submissions from students in many different programs and schools across the University.

Winners will work with dynamic teams of professional consultants, industry experts, and entrepreneurs to build strong business plans that they can use in local, regional, and national business plan competitions. Sharma will use this support to create a company that supplies parking

garages with “Parkon,” a cheap, robust, reliable, easyto-install, and affordable system that will enable garage owners to communicate information about the garage location, hourly rates, and occupancy status in real time to drivers over their cell phones.

Drew M. Sakai and Justin Friend, winners of Young Scholarships, with their nominator, Professor Badie I. Morsi

Drew M. Sakai (BSChE ’06) and Justin Friend, a chemical engineering senior, were awarded Lewis E. and Elizabeth W. Young Scholarships for the 2006–07 academic year by the Western Pennsylvania section of the Woman’s Auxiliary to the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers (WAAIME), in conjunction with AIME. Badie I. Morsi, professor, provided the nominations for this year’s scholarship recipients. Young Scholarships are made available to students pursuing degrees in the earth science field, including petroleum engineering.

A School of Engineering student has been named a Rhodes scholar by the Rhodes Trust.

Daniel Armanios, a University Honors College student from Marietta, Ga., who graduated in April with degrees in mechanical engineering and political science, was chosen as a 2007 Rhodes scholar. Armanios is among only 32 U.S. students selected, making Pitt one of only five U.S. public universities with a 2007 Rhodes scholar, the only Pennsylvania school—public or private—to win, and the only public university in the nation to win in both 2006 and 2007. Moreover, Armanios is the only undergraduate engineering student to be named a Rhodes scholar in 2007.

A 2004 Goldwater scholar in engineering, science, and mathematics and a 2005 Truman scholar for leadership as an undergraduate, Armanios is the fifth honors college student to win a Rhodes award since 1983 and the first Pitt student to win three such prestigious awards.

With the Rhodes award, Armanios will study at the University of Oxford in England for Master of Science degrees in management research and dryland science and management. During his time at Pitt, he was a member of Pitt’s Model United Nations; a founder of Session: Middle East, an undergraduate forum for debating the Arab-Israeli conflict; and an exchange and events editor for the Oxford International Review, working with the U.S. embassy of the United Arab Emirates to institutionalize an exchange program connecting young American and Emirati scholars. A Donald M. Henderson scholar in engineering, Armanios was a member of the USA Today 2006 All-USA College Academic second team and was a 2005 American Helicopter Society Vertical Flight scholar. Additionally, Armanios made USA Today’s 2007 All-USA College Academic First Team. Armanios was one of 20 students selected from nearly 600 nominees for the first team.

Armanios’ ultimate goal is to pursue a PhD in engineering systems as well as graduate work in public policy and resource management.

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Student News

Research Centers, Institutes, and Schoolwide News

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N E W S Mark Caliendo (BSChE ’75) is joined by co-op students as he receives the award for 2006 Co-op Outstanding Samuel Dickerson, electrical Employer of the Year on behalf of Valspar Corp. and computer engineering graduate student, presented “Three-Dimensional Integrated Circuits for Lab-on-Chip Consolidated Edison Co. (New York); Duquesne Light Co. Dielectrophoresis of Nanometer Scale Particles” as part (Pittsburgh); and PJM Interconnection (Norristown, Pa.). of the MOEMS-MEMS 2007 symposium at the 2007 The main objective of the event was to provide students International Society for Optical Engineering conference, with an opportunity to learn more about the power and Photonics West, January 20–25, 2007, in San Jose, Calif. energy industry and the growing career opportunities Dickerson presented with Donald Chiarulli; Steven Levitan, in this exciting and dynamic field. The utility industry John A. Jurenko Professor; and Arnaldo J. Noyola. representatives also spent several hours meeting with faculty to discuss their engineering and business needs Congratulations to the fall 2006 PPG Undergraduate as well as to exchange ideas on the state of the industry Research Contest winners: Tyler Price, a junior in chemical and the challenges ahead. Greg Reed, adjunct faculty, engineering, received first place; Emily Olsheski, a junior in and Donald Shields, director of corporate relations, chemical engineering, took second place; and Sean Cook organized the event. Other participating faculty members and Despina Xenakis, both seniors in chemical engineerincluded Robert Boston and Tom Cain, both from the ing, took third place. The PPG Undergraduate Research Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Competition is held at the end of each semester with Larry Shuman, associate dean for academic affairs and support generously provided by PPG Industries Foundation. industrial engineering professor.

takes the ceremonial first swing at a defunct computer during the E-Week student competition called

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the Computer Smash.

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Outside of co-op, Puchkarev is the public relations chair for the Pitt student chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery and is a contestant in the Microsoft Corp. 2007 Imagine Cup. Puchkarev is currently in first place after the first round of this international competition, the finals of which will be held in South Korea. He speaks three languages fluently: English, Russian, and Italian.

U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering Gerald D. Holder congratulates 2006 Co-op Student of the Year Pavel Puchkarev.

The University of Pittsburgh Robotics Club built four robots this year designed to simulate the work of firefighters. During the simulation the robot sought to extinguish a candle that was hidden within a maze.

Students from the Departments of Electrical and

The School of Engineering Cooperative Education (Co-op) Program is pleased to announce its 2006 awardees.

Computer Engineering and Mechanical Engineering

Valspar Corp. has been named the 2006 Co-op Outstanding Employer of the Year. Valspar has supported cooperative education by working with significant numbers of Pitt co-op students in relevant and challenging assignments since 1994. Both the students and rotations have been carefully selected to provide both the individual and the company with optimum results.

Students have been challenged by assignments that increase in difficulty as they progress through the curriculum. Valspar also has demonstrated personal interest in each of the students and has shown commitment to the University, sharing vision and expertise. In addition, several graduates have been hired as a result of their co-op experiences with Valspar.

www.pitt.edu/AFShome/s/o/sorc/public/html/robotics.

Mark Caliendo (BSChE ’75), senior engineer, received the award on behalf of Valspar. He has truly committed himself to the Co-op Program, and it is because of his efforts through the years that Valspar has maintained a commitment to quality that is unsurpassed.

and Materials Science and the Department of Computer Science in the School of Arts and Sciences participated. More information about the Robotics Club and the competition is available online at

Students from the Steel II class, taught by Brian Kozy, adjunct faculty member in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, took a field trip to the U.S. Steel Corp.’s Edgar Thomson and Irvin Plants to see steel production and processing firsthand.

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Dean Gerald D. Holder

In association with ECE 1769: Power System Analysis, the School of Engineering and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering held Electric Utility Industry Night on November 13, 2006. More than 50 students attended the program, which consisted of presentations by representatives from Allegheny Power Corp. (Greensburg, Pa.); American Electric Power (Columbus, Ohio);

The 2006 Co-op Student of the Year is Pavel Puchkarev (BSEE ’06). Puchkarev carries a 3.93 grade point average as a graduate student and is a member of Eta Kappa Nu Electrical and Computer Engineering Honor Society. In addition to his three co-op terms, he also completed his undergraduate course work in six academic semesters as opposed to the typical eight. Puchkarev worked for Aerotech—which makes motion controllers— where he created regression testing in order to compare data and wrote code to test several different scenarios for a new product. Because Puchkarev created the code, the company now has tests that are extensive and complete. He also wrote a module that uses Modbus/TCP protocol, which is being used by the company.

Finally, Puchkarev was on a team that created a new controller that can now control up to 10 motors and developed a new library for customers’ applications, which is easy to use and aids them in the creation of their custom applications for the controller.

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Mechanical engineering graduate student Hasballah Zakaria gave a podium presentation at the Fifth World Congress of Biomechanics in Munich, Germany, July 29–August 4, 2006. His talk described some of his doctoral research under the direction of Anne M. Robertson, associate professor, and in collaboration with David Kallmes and other colleagues at the Mayo Clinic.

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Alumni Profile Pages

The IntraFirm program is a special offering to local businesses where large numbers of School of Engineering alumni are employed. This was the second year of the program, during which participating companies hosted receptions for their employees to gather and hear from School of Engineering faculty and staff.

Pitt Engineer’s Designs Reach Kitchens around the World (and Likely Yours, Too)

A Random Look at the Lives and Careers of Pitt Engineering Alumni

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Following the life of David Kusuma practically requires the aid of a world map. That’s one reason why it makes so much sense that he’s now the lead product designer for a global company with a presence in more than 100 countries. As vice president of product development worldwide for Orlando, Fla.-based Tupperware Corp., it is his job to see that this icon of the American kitchen continues developing innovative, yet functional food storage containers, household gadgets, and other time-saving solutions for an increasingly global customer base.

This year’s meetings highlighted new educational and research programs relevant to each of the participating companies and their products or services. At Westinghouse, Associate Dean Michael Lovell provided an update on the new undergraduate and graduate certificate programs in nuclear engineering. At Mitsubishi Electric Power Products, electrical and computer engineering chair Bill Stanchina shared an update on new power engineering courses and research initiatives related to the electric power industry. And the presentations at FedEx Ground and H.B. Maynard & Co. both featured industrial engineering faculty members Bryan Norman and Jay Rajgopal, who discussed the latest research in radio frequency identification (RFID) and applications of this new technology in supply chain management.

Kusuma was born in New York, not long after his parents, who both are of Chinese descent, moved there from Indonesia. His father’s job brought them to the United States, as he took an assignment at the United Nations headquarters in New York. Kusuma spent his childhood in many different

Ken Smith of H.B. Maynard & Co. received the 2006–07 IntraFirm Volunteer of the Year Award from Carey Anne Zucca, director of alumni relations for the School of Engineering.

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places following his father’s international assignments, which included stops in Ethiopia, Thailand, Lebanon, and Jordan. He attended high school in Connecticut and came to Pittsburgh to attend Carnegie Mellon University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, specializing in industrial design.

He remained in Pittsburgh, working for Bayer Polymers as a design engineer from 1987 to 1998. Later that year, he transferred to Exatec, a joint venture “ It is the designer’s job between Bayer and GE Plastics, which was developing new polycarbonate winto dream, but it is the dows and glazing technology designed engineer’s job to say to make safer and more lightweight whether a designer’s windows for the auto industry. During this time, he also took the initiative to dream is possible. I’m earn another bachelor’s degree, this fortunate to see this time in mechanical engineering from Pitt, process from both sides.” which he completed in 2000.

David Kusuma

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Craig Molinaro (BSIE ’99)

Ken Smith (Friend)

Greg Reed (PhD ’97)

Ken Balkey (BSME ’72, MSME ’80)

If you would like your company to participate in the 2007–08 IntraFirm program, contact Carey Anne Zucca, director of alumni relations, at 412-624-9813.

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Thanks to the 2006–07 IntraFirm companies and lead volunteers

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news He joined Tupperware in 2001 as director of engineering for the U.S. and Latin American markets and was named to his current role the following year. He now oversees Tupperware’s two design centers in Orlando and Belgium, where a mix of about 40 engineers and designers develop and test new Tupperware products for all worldwide markets. According to Kusuma, accounting for cultural differences in product design is critical.

“Products that may work well in a typical American kitchen can’t simply be expected to sell in another country like India or Japan. We try to take into account cultural preferences related to functionality; aesthetics like colors and shapes; and even the materials, such as plastics, stainless steel, or composites.”

Tupperware’s reputation is built on developing unique products, but that also poses Kusuma’s greatest challenge. “Rather than developing only products that meet basic consumer needs, our success is highly driven by designing products that create new needs. These are products that people did not realize they needed and now know they cannot live without,” Kusuma says. “Many of our customers tell us about a storage item or household gadget that they were not necessarily looking to buy, but once they did and realized how much they needed it, they get hooked on the Tupperware brand. Simple but smart. This is what drives our innovation in design, and it’s extremely challenging considering Tupperware’s long history of innovative products.”

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But design and engineering aren’t the only parts of the business Kusuma has to know. Before any new product is unveiled, he has to convince the company that there is a strong demand for it. Judging consumer demand isn’t an exact science, Kusuma says, leading sometimes to unexpected results.

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“In one particular case,” he recalls, “we developed a totally new product with a flexible seal that Tupperware eventually called the Stuffables container. There was no precedent for this type of product, and when we presented the prototype, demonstrating the possibility to overstuff a container with this innovative seal, the feedback we received from the company was an unenthusiastic sales projection of 25,000 units in the first year. Despite this, we made the decision to proceed, and when it went on the market, Tupperware

Kusuma envisions Tupperware products in the future will incorporate high-tech features, especially those targeting food conservation and food safety. He is pursuing this field firsthand, as a PhD student at Cranfield University in England. He uses his frequent trips to Europe to continue his doctoral studies, which focus on microbiology and the development of sensors and other new technologies as they relate to detecting bacteria and food spoilage.

“They always used to say, way back when, that metallurgy was more of an art than a science,” says Sobota, now president of the International Titanium Association as well as president and chief executive officer of TechSpec in Derry, Pa. “I was always a person who was very analytical, [but] it seemed that metallurgy and I fit very well.”

At Pitt, Sobota built character in addition to his technical expertise. He attended classes “in the only five-story building on campus that didn’t have an elevator,” which had a melting furnace in the basement so students could learn their profession literally from the ground up.

“This represents the next generation of product design for our industry,” Kusuma predicts, “and it holds the potential to dramatically enhance food safety everywhere.”

He describes the faculty as “the old-time guys who were products of U.S. Steel and the mills,” and adds, “It was quite an education; it was a good education.”

Scholarship Gave Titanium Titan His Start—Now He’s Giving Back

In the basement furnace, students learned how to melt alloys and figure out the chemistry of the process. For a boy who literally was born into the business, there could have been no better preparation for a career in metal.

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In the shadow of a steel plant in Latrobe, Pa., a 5-year-old boy once waited outside for his father, a steelworker, to finish his workday.

He grew up to become a standout student who had his pick of colleges; it was the owner of that mill, Vanadium Alloy Steel Co., who agreed to help pay for his education in the 1960s to study metallurgical engineering. And it was the University of Pittsburgh that found academic scholarships that would help Edward F. Sobota forge a career in titanium.

Edward F. Sobota

“We learned how to do a lot of things that were nontextbook things, and I think that kind of background was really what enabled me to embark on my own business,” says Sobota.

He learned to get grimy and enjoyed it: “That’s what I always kind of liked about metallurgical engineering. It’s a hands-on business. You don’t just sit in an office, even after this many years in the business. Everybody wears a lot of different hats, and everybody always gets dirty.”

The venture was successful for about nine months, until one of his biggest clients decided it wanted a full-time employee to do the job instead of a contractor. Back on his own, and with a wife and new family to support, Sobota was worried—until he caught a lucky break and the client asked him to come back. He agreed, but only if he could remain completely independent. It was, he recalls, “the gutsiest move of my life.” But from that point forward, his company, TechSpec, was on its own for good.

The company evolved from strictly consulting and soon included processing; it began marketing its own product in the early 1980s and grew from a bedroom office to a firm with nearly 50 employees.

“We’re kind of a name in the marketplace, and we’ve been in the titanium business for well over 30 years,” says Sobota. His wife, Diane, runs the accounting end of the business. Their sons, Edward Allen and Michael, followed in their father’s engineering footsteps, the younger Edward as vice president of operations at TechSpec and Michael at W.L. Gore & Associates in Delaware.

“We learned how to do a lot of things that were nontextbook things, and I think that kind of background was really what enabled me to embark on my own business.”

After graduating in 1967 with a BS in metallurgical engineering, Sobota returned to the mill where his father worked and repaid his debt by working there for four years.

“It was a place I knew, and obviously I felt a little bit bound to work for them,” he says.

But by the time the 1970s rolled around, small steel companies were becoming an endangered species. When conglomerates took over, Sobota saw friends with 10–15 years of experience getting pink slips. He decided that he didn’t want to live in fear of getting laid off, so he turned back to Pitt, earning a master’s degree in teaching at night while simultaneously working a full-time job.

He took a job teaching math, chemistry, and advanced chemistry at Ligonier Valley High School and started a consulting business on the side that capitalized on one of his duties at Vanadium Alloy Steel: monitoring titanium products that other companies had sent in for processing.

Sobota served as a technical consultant, contracting out his services. He struck out on his own completely in 1974.

Sobota believes the biggest challenge in his business is keeping up with demand.

Though expensive, titanium is a unique metal with applications across every facet of the energy, transportation, public service, and petroleum industries.

Sobota himself is living proof of its use in medical applications.

“I’m a product of my own profession,” he says. “I have a titanium knee and a titanium hip.”

TechSpec boasts one of the best titanium finishing facilities in the country; when he speaks of it, Sobota recalls that melting furnace in the basement at the School of Engineering.

“My hat’s off to the professors that I had at Pitt,” he says.

“Knowledge is a compilation of your experiences, and mine really all started back there.”

To show his appreciation for getting his start at Pitt, Sobota established the Edward F. Sobota Engineering Legacy Fund in 2006 to benefit materials science in the School of Engineering. Engineering Legacy Funds are permanently endowed funds that generate unrestricted income in perpetuity. By establishing this fund, this “titanium titan” knows there will always be a fund in his name helping to give future generations of Pitt engineers the same experience he needed to succeed. w w w . e n g r . p i t t. e d u

“It is the designer’s job to dream, but it is the engineer’s job to say whether a designer’s dream is possible. I’m fortunate to see this process from both sides.”

sold 600,000 units in just the first two months! Over the next year or two it also earned an unprecedented number of international awards!”

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“Since I was working full time, I did not have the same campus experience as many of my traditional classmates, but I was active in Tau Beta Pi (the engineering honors society), and the overall education I received was excellent and has been invaluable to my career,” Kusuma recalls.

Plus, having both a design background and an engineering education gives him perspective from both sides of product development.

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news “I loved meeting alumni from all across the United States and finding out what they were working on and why they came back,” she says.

Now, just three short years after earning her degree in civil engineering, Belarski (BSCE ’04) has become one of those very people she once enjoyed meeting: a working Pitt graduate who has stayed connected to her school.

As a process engineer for General Electric Co.’s aviation division in her hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio, Belarski is putting her education to work in the company’s Edison Engineering Development Program, which gives promising young employees the opportunity to sample a handful of different jobs while also earning credit toward their master’s degrees.

“I’m really excited about it,” she says. “The group that I’m going to is pretty young. It’s growing, and I can learn a lot. I always try to pick jobs that give me something new to do and learn about.”

Belarski developed her engineering interests through her father, a mechanical engineer who is now retired from General Electric. To encourage her interest, he gave her an opportunity during her early teens that few parents would ever consider offering their teenager: a chance to landscape the entire yard of the family’s home. Approaching the project as only an engineer would, she carefully measured different elevations, figured out the amount of materials she’d need, and laid out bricks. The finished product remains part of the family’s home to this day.

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Though she studied civil engineering as an undergraduate, Belarski believes she received a solid foundation and technical skills that she has easily applied to the mechanical world in which she works. Naturally outgoing, she was involved in planning many social and volunteer events for the Pitt Engineering Student Council, and she fondly recalls attending Pitt football games, in which Justin Belarski, now her husband, played center.

“ A lot of students are looking for a place where they can find their niche, and Pittsburgh is a place where you can do that.”

After three years and four assignments, Belarski found the job that best fits her interests in the aviation division, where she will assemble aircraft engines, focusing on hardware components. She expects to complete her master’s degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Cincinnati this spring.

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“I really liked the urban feel of the University, and the engineering school was in one building and allowed you to have that small-school feel,” she says. “I really liked being part of the city and having different things to do on the weekend.”

When it was time to choose a college, Belarski spent an overnight weekend at Pitt as part of the Pitt Pathfinders program and wound up meeting two people who were to become some of her best friends. She was hooked.

“I miss being with all my friends all the time,” she says. “Pitt is such a close campus; everything’s very tight. You live a block or two from everyone that you know.”

When she attends college fairs to recruit promising high school students, Belarski likes to emphasize the value the School of Engineering represents.

“The engineering school at Pitt offers a lot of great professors, technical information, and resources, and it’s not terribly expensive,” she points out. “A lot of students are looking for a place where they can find their niche, and Pittsburgh is a place where you can do that.”

2007 Distinguished Alumni Michael Bilirakis Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering, 1959 Congressman (Ret.) U.S. House of Representatives Washington, D.C. Michael Bilirakis (R-Fla.) was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in November 1982 and served for 24 years, representing the residents of the ninth district of Florida. He retired from Congress at the end of 2006. During his tenure, he served on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, where he was vice chair of the full committee and chair of the Health Subcommittee. He was also vice chair of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs and chair of its oversight subcommittee.

As Health Subcommittee chair, Bilirakis was a vocal advocate for medical research and a national leader on health reform. He also was instrumental in the passage of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003. He played a leading role in protecting Medicare from bankruptcy, ensuring the safety of the nation’s drinking water, improving the quality of the food supply, modernizing the drug approval process, and expanding access to affordable health insurance. He also worked to secure enactment of the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002. In recognition of his work, he was named one of the most “legislatively productive” members of Congress by National Journal’s Almanac of American Politics.

Bilirakis has received many awards for his public service, including the L. Mendel Rivers Award of Excellence from the Air Force Sergeants Association, the Inspirational Leadership Award from the Military Order of the Purple Heart, and the AMVETS Silver Helmet Award. He also received the VFW’s Congressional Award for his outstanding service to the nation’s veterans.

Dennis P. Yeskey Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, 1972 Master of Science in Civil Engineering, 1973 National Director, Real Estate Capital Markets Practice Deloitte & Touche USA New York, N.Y. Dennis Yeskey joined Deloitte & Touche in 1995 as head of the Tri-State/New York City Real Estate Services Practice. He later was named national director of the Real Estate Capital Markets Practice, a position in which he continues to serve the company today.

He has played a pivotal role in the development of both of these practices, as they have grown more than 20 percent annually over the past eight years. He also is a senior managing director of Deloitte’s National Real Estate Services Practice. In all these roles, he is responsible for developing and delivering all of Deloitte’s professional services to major domestic and global real estate investors, including opportunity funds, private equity players, banks, insurance companies, pension funds, endowments, and foundations.

Yeskey is a frequent speaker and primary author of many of Deloitte’s special real estate studies and publications, including recent reports such as 2006 Real Estate Capital Markets Industry Outlook: Top Ten Issues. In addition, Yeskey plays a key real estate leadership role for Deloitte & Touche’s National and Global Financial Services Industries. He is extremely active in the European and Asian practices, having both lived and worked extensively in these regions.

During the past decade, Yeskey also has been group managing director, with responsibilities for real estate, private equity, investment management, and insurance market units in the New York office. Prior to joining Deloitte, he was a senior managing director with Kenneth Leventhal & Co. and was responsible for developing the firm’s institutional practice in financial advisory and workout/bankruptcy services.

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When Asha (Kamat) Belarski was an undergraduate at the School of Engineering, she often spent time discussing the world outside Pitt with alumni who came back to visit campus. As a member of the Blue and Gold Society, she served as a liaison between the Pitt Alumni Association and the student community.

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Pitt Degree Launches an Engineering Career with GE Aviation

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Mino led the company through an initial venture funding stage of $24 million from backers like Cisco Systems. Additional venture funding has since been received, and the company went public in 2004 as one of the few nanotechnology firms to make an initial public offering that year. The company now employs more than 50 staff members, most of whom are PhD-trained research scientists.

Before joining Lumera, Mino served as vice president and general manager of the high-speed long-haul business unit of Agere Systems—an optical components supplier—from 1999 to 2001. From 1991 to 1998, Mino was president and chief executive officer of Synergy Semiconductor Corp., a specialty high-speed semiconductor manufacturer.

Aldo Zini Department of Industrial Engineering Bachelor of Science, 1975 President and Chief Executive Officer Aethon Inc. Pittsburgh, Pa. Aldo Zini’s contribution to healthcare technology and the growth of several early stage companies into industry leaders extends over the course of three decades. At Aethon, he leads the nation’s largest healthcare robotic company focused on automating delivery and transportation applications in hospitals and other healthcare facilities. Aethon’s core product, the Tug, is the first low-cost autonomous robot that is positioned to change the way hospitals and other industries manage the movement and delivery of goods.

Before Aethon, Zini played a key role in other successful early stage technology companies. He led the sales and marketing efforts at Pittsburgh-based Automated Healthcare Inc. (AHI) until McKesson Corp. acquired it in 1996, and he was named senior vice president of marketing. In this role, he helped McKesson’s industry-leading drug distribution business double its growth for three straight years. Today, McKesson’s Automation Group is the largest healthcare automation company in the world.

Zini is actively involved in the Pittsburgh community. He is a former trustee and current officer at Peters Creek Presbyterian Church and a member of the Pitt Panther Club, Pitt Alumni Association, and the Chancellor’s Circle. He is on the Board of Directors of Western Pennsylvania’s chapter of Lucchesi nel Mondo, an international Italian cultural organization, and he is an advisor to several early stage technology companies. As an avid musician, he plays lead trumpet for the Pitt Alumni Dance Band and also served as president of the Pitt Band Alumni Council.

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Zini holds several patents for medical devices and has received numerous awards for his accomplishments as an entrepreneur and business leader.

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news Thomas D. Mino has served as chief executive officer, president, and as a director at Lumera Corp., since September 2001. Headquartered in the Seattle suburb of Bothell, Wash., Lumera has quickly distinguished itself as a leader in the emergence of commercial applications in nanotechnology, developing proprietary polymer materials and products based on these materials. These polymer materials are engineered at the molecular level to optimize their electrical, optical, and/or surface properties. Lumera has developed materials using nanotechnology techniques to improve the design, performance, and functionality of devices used primarily in bioscience and in communications and computing.

Craig Staresinich Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering, 1969 Vice President and General Manager, Kinetic Energy Interceptors Program Northrop Grumman Corp., Mission Systems Sector Fairfax, Va. Craig Staresinich is the sector vice president and general manager of the Kinetic Energy Interceptors (KEI) Program for Northrop Grumman Mission Systems. KEI is headquartered in Fair Lakes, Va., and focuses on developing and implementing KEI, a land- and sea-based missile defense system. The division’s main locations include Boulder, Colo.; Huntsville, Ala.; Sunnyvale, Calif.; and Tucson, Ariz.

Staresinich joined mission systems from the Northrop Grumman Space Technology sector, where he served as vice president and deputy of programs. In addition to this role, he was assigned as the space technology sector’s lead executive for NASA’s Project Prometheus in April 2003. His background includes program management for Program 072 and the Chandra program, an initiative that provides X-ray images to scientists and astronomers worldwide.

Staresinich joined what was then TRW Inc. in 1983 after a 14-year career with NASA’s Johnson Space Center to help integrate TRW payloads into the space shuttle program. He held several Mission Operations Control Center positions on the Apollo, Skylab, and other shuttle programs for NASA. In addition to his degree from Pitt, he also is a graduate of the TRW Business Leadership Program.

In 2006, Staresinich made a commitment to fund a full scholarship for an engineering student at Pitt who demonstrated both academic merit and financial need. The first recipient of the Craig Staresinich Scholarship, Lucas Duvall­—a freshman from Uniontown, Pa.—will be eligible to receive the scholarship for four years.

Distinguished Young Alumni Award Michael J. Fasolka Bachelor of Science in Materials Science and Engineering, 1994 Director, Combinatorial Methods Center National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, Md. Michael J. Fasolka is director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Combinatorial Methods Center and leader of the Combinatorial Methods Group in the Polymers Division of NIST. He leads a team of 12 scientists in the development of combinatorial and high-throughput measurement approaches, which are revolutionizing the discovery and optimization of new materials in industry and academia. For his achievements, Fasolka was awarded a U.S. Department of Commerce Silver Medal in 2005.

His scientific interests are in the areas of polymer nanomaterials, self-assembly, polymer films and surfaces, and advanced scanned probe microscopy techniques. He began his research career at Pitt in 1991 as an undergraduate assistant to Professor Anna Balazs, building computational simulations illuminating the behavior of grafted copolymer systems.

Fellowships from the National Science Foundation and the Josephine de Karman Foundation enabled his doctoral studies at MIT, where he developed breakthrough methods for engineering self-assembled polymer films.

His career at NIST began in 2000 with a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship, through which he advanced optical scanned probe methods for nanomaterials analysis. A permanent NIST staff member since 2002, Fasolka has a focus on combi- and high-throughput approaches aimed at accelerating the discovery of nanomaterials through ultrarapid nanometrology methods. This body of research earned him a Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering in 2004.

Fasolka is particularly proud of previous honors from Pitt, including the Lombardi Fellowship and the Emma W. Locke Award, and of cofounding the Fessenden Honors in Engineering Program (FHEP) seminar, which flourishes today.

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Thomas D. Mino Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, 1968 President and Chief Executive Officer Lumera Corp.

Bothell, Wash.

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of Family during his book signing at the Pitt Book Center in October.

news David W. Wohlfarth (BSPET ’68) was named vice president for gas supply of PSEG Energy Resources & Trade (ER&T) in December 2006.

Wohlfarth had been managing director of gas and fuel supply at ER&T since 2005. In this position, he had overall profit and loss responsibility for the gas contract portfolio of ER&T, Wohlfarth

including responsibility for long-term capacity acquisition and restructuring, gas trading, and regulatory matters related to gas supply and price issues before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He also had oversight of oil and coal supplies for PSEG Power’s generation fleet. Wohlfarth joined PSEG in 1968, and he has held various positions, including president of the Energy Development Corp. (EDC), PSEG’s oil and gas exploration subsidiary, and Gasdel Pipeline Inc., EDC’s interstate gas pipeline subsidiary.

Wohlfarth is a member of the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering’s visiting committee. He holds a Master of Business Administration from Rutgers University, which

Son’s International Quest for Heritage, Reunion, and Enrichment, is an inspiring account of Brooks’ search for his family that crossed cultural and racial boundaries. Brooks also returned to campus on April 6, 2007, to speak at the School of Engineering Office of Diversity Seminar. He now resides in Houston, Texas.

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he earned in 1974. Wohlfarth received the School of Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award in 2006 from the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering.

Keith Yamatani (BSCE ’99, MSCE ’00), a geotechnical/civil engineer at Washington Group International in Princeton, N.J., was one of two engineers named 2007 Young Engineer of the Year by the Delaware Valley Engineers Week Council. The award recognizes outstanding young engineers (under 35 years of age prior to January 1, 2007) with demonstrated leadership abilities and recognized contributions to the engineering profession. Yamatani received the award during Delaware Valley Engineers Week, February 18–24. The cable network CN8 interviewed him for Comcast Newsmakers, which aired during Engineers Week.

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Alka A. Patel (BSMSE ’96), an associate in the Pittsburgh office of Pepper Hamilton LLP, received a Society of Women Engineers (SWE) 2006 Distinguished New Engineer Award. The award, which is given annually for outstanding technical performance during the first 10 years of a woman’s engineering career, recognized Patel for her technical excellence, academic and professional achievement, and civic participation in support of the SWE mission.

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Patel concentrates her law practice in intellectual property matters, including patent prosecution. Her technology practice includes an array of materials science, chemical, medical, mechanical, and business method fields. The Legal Intelligencer and Pennsylvania Law Weekly recently named Patel one of 25 Women on the Verge (of greater accomplishments and increased visibility in Pennsylvania) in their annual Women in the Profession supplement (May 2006). In 2004, the Pittsburgh Business Times named her one of the Pittsburgh area’s top 50 Fast Trackers under the age of 45.

On October 20, 2006, Thomas Brooks (BSEE ’88) returned to campus for a special book signing at the Pitt Book Center. His book, A Wealth of Family: An Adopted

David Sartori (MSIE ’97) spoke at the industrial engineering (IE) Graduate Seminar on November 30, 2006. His talk was titled “Six Sigma: Current and Future State of the Initiative and its Relationship to the IE Profession.” Sartori earned a BA in chemistry and math from Thiel College in 1984 and then joined PPG Industries as a product development chemist in the Industrial Coil Coatings Group. After a two-year stint at PPG’s Springdale, Pa., coatings plant, he returned to the research center and worked primarily with polyester-based coatings systems for the metal building market. In 1990, he was named to the position of research statistician. Sartori completed his Six Sigma Black Belt training with Six Sigma Associates of Knoxville, Tenn., in 1998, and in 2000, he was named to a team charged with internalizing the Six Sigma process at PPG. He was named manager of operational excellence for PPG’s Chemicals R&D unit in 2001. In addition to his master’s degree in industrial engineering, he has a master’s degree in applied statistics from Pitt. His research interests are in the areas of experimental design, simultaneous optimization of product properties, and improving innovation and product development processes.

Michael J. Gazarik (BSEE ’87), head of the Passive Sensor Systems Branch and Extravenicular Infrared (EVA IR) Camera principal investigator at NASA’s Langley Research

Center, has received the Silver Snoopy Award. NASA’s astronaut office awards the Silver Snoopy—for outstanding service that contributes to flight safety and mission success—to less than 1 percent of its employees annually.

David Sartori (center) mingles with attendees of the Industrial Engineering Graduate Seminar.

Donald Miller (BSChE ’79) of Wyeth Pharmaceuticals visited campus in October 2006 to deliver a seminar to the faculty of the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering. Miller and the rest of his team received the Heroes of Chemistry award from the American Chemistry Society in 2004 for their work on the drug delivery system for the cancer drug Mylotarg. He earned his PhD in chemical engineering from Purdue University.

William Rhodes (MSChE ’97, PhD ’01), of the Savannah River National Laboratory, served as meeting program chair for the 2007 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Spring National Meeting in Houston, Texas.

Greg Reed (PhD ’97) has been named senior vice president of KEMA Inc.’s Power System Planning and Management practice. With extensive experience in supporting and developing power system technologies and services, Reed will lead the continued strategic growth of KEMA’s successful technical transmission and distribution practice in North America. He will focus on client issues related to transmission planning, asset management, system protection and reliability, and future power systems.

Reed recently also accepted a position as an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Pitt.

Michael J. Gazarik (far right) and his fellow NASA crew members pose with the EVA IR camera.

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news Robert H. Luffy (BSCE ’72) won the 2007 William Metcalf Award, the highest award presented by the Engineers’ Society of Western Pennsylvania (ESWP) and named after the founding president of ESWP. The Metcalf Award is the lifetime achievement award for significant contributions to engineering in fields associated with Western Pennsylvania. Luffy is president and CEO of American Bridge Co., headquartered in Pittsburgh, and is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, American Society of Highway Engineers, and Construction Industry Round Table. He served as chair of the board of the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium for five years and is the former chair of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Western Pennsylvania, where he is still a board member.

Tony Petrella (PhD ’00) has joined the faculty of the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colo., as an assistant professor of bioengineering.

Three sisters, all graduates of the School of Engineering: (left to right) Kimberly Patterson (BSCE ’06), an employee of C&S Engineers in Syracuse, N.Y.; Sara Patterson (BSChE ’03), a process engineer with N.A. Water Systems in Pittsburgh; and Carly Patterson (BSCE ’06), currently working for Pennoni Associates in Bethlehem, Pa.

Electrical engineering alumni gathered in New York City to celebrate New Year’s Eve 2006 together: (left to right) Denny Knorr (BSEE ’04), Jim (Wen-Chieh) Yu

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(BSEE ’04), and Steve Grubisa (BSEE ’03).

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Three sisters, all graduates of the School of Engineering: (left to right) Kimberly Patterson (BSCE ’06), an employee of C&S Engineers in Syracuse, N.Y.; Sara Patterson (BSChE ’03), a process engineer with N.A. Water Systems in Pittsburgh; and Carly Patterson (BSCE ’06), currently working for Pennoni Associates in Bethlehem, Pa.

Alan Marcus (BSME ’46) died January 4, 2007, of complications following major surgery. He was 82. He is survived by his wife, Betty Jane White, who he met in his senior class homeroom at Taylor Allderdice High School.

They were married for 60 years and lived in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Marcus served in the U.S. Marine Corps; was stationed at Camp Pendleton, Calif., in 1944; and began his job at the Limbach Co. after earning his mechanical engineering degree. During nearly four decades at the company, Marcus oversaw heating, ventilating, air conditioning, and plumbing infrastructure for major buildings and worked on projects that included the John Hancock Tower in Boston, Mass.; FBI Academy in Quantico, Va.; National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; Renaissance Center in Detroit, Mich.; and Monroeville Mall in Pittsburgh. He also oversaw the construction of the retractable roof and refrigeration for the ice rink at what was then the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

Robert Michael Sentner (BSPET ’62), passed away November 24, 2006, of lung cancer. After graduating from Pitt, Sentner worked in Washington, D.C., for what was then the Federal Power Commission. He later returned to Pittsburgh, where he worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and later for the Internal Revenue Service in the gas and oil division as a petroleum engineer doing tax work for companies dealing with petroleum and gas.

Walter Daniel Brown (BSEE ’38, MSEE ’48) died October 6, 2006, at University Medical Center at Princeton after a long bout with cancer. He was 88. He had a long career in the electric utility industry and related fields and retired in 1985 as president of the National Electric Reliability Council (NERC), now the North American Electric Reliability Corp., based in Princeton, N.J. Brown began his career in the electric utility business with Duquesne Light Co. in Pittsburgh. During World War II, he instructed new officers in naval warfare applications of electrical engineering at Cornell University. Later, as an ensign in the Navy Reserve, he was assigned to the U.S. Naval Mine Warfare Test Station at Solomons, Md. In 1964, he became systems engineering editor at McGraw-Hill’s Electrical World magazine in New York City. He was on the job on November 9, 1965, when 30 million customers in the Northeast, including New York City, suffered a total electrical blackout. He wrote the definitive report about the blackout for Electrical World and subsequently became a respected authority on electric utility industry reliability issues. NERC hired him in 1970 as secretary-treasurer and administrative manager.

He retired as president in 1985. He was a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers as well as the U.S. committee of the World Energy Conference. While at Pitt, he was selected as Outstanding Electrical Engineer in 1938, and he was a member of Sigma Tau, Eta Kappa Nu, and Scabbard and Blade.

Mark T. Resh (BSEE ’01) was killed in the line of duty in Iraq on January 28, 2007. He was a member of campus ROTC and graduated summa cum laude. Capt. Resh entered the U.S. Army in May 2001. His awards and decorations include the Air Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, and Army Aviation Badge.

John Wistar Simpson (MSEE ’41) died January 4, 2007, at the age of 93. A former president of Westinghouse Electric Co., Mr. Simpson was involved in the development of the use of the atom as a source of energy. He made significant contributions to nuclear theory, including in the areas of marine propulsion, electric power generation, and space propulsion. While pursuing his degree at Pitt, he was director of what was then Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory at Westinghouse Electric. He received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the School of Engineering in 1972.

Marcus Allias, of Springdale, Pa., died on November 20, 2006. He was 86. For more than 30 years, Dr. Allias served as an adjunct professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering, most recently teaching ENGR 1010: Communication Skills for Engineers. He also was a loyal donor, having made an annual gift to the School of Engineering for 26 consecutive years and making a gift at the Leadership Donor level for the recent campaign to fund the construction of the Albert G. Holzman Learning Center in Industrial Engineering. He earned three Pitt degrees, all from the School of Education—a BS in 1943, an MEd in 1946, and a PhD in 1956.

Alvin R. Flesher (BSME ’58) died at age 71 of injuries sustained from an accident. Mr. Flesher was in ROTC during his undergraduate years at Pitt and was commissioned in the U.S. Air Force upon graduating. While in the Air Force, he also was employed by Boeing Corp., where he helped design the Boeing 707. After Boeing, Mr. Flesher went to work for Glenn L. Martin Co. (an early precursor to Martin Marietta Corp.). He left the aerospace industry and worked for a mechanical design firm dealing with heating and cooling systems. He retired in 2001 and took up competitive badminton. In 2005, he and his badminton partner won a bronze medal in doubles at the Senior Olympic Games held in Pittsburgh. Mr. Flesher is survived by his wife, Joanne, and his son, Ken (BSCE ’81), who teaches civil engineering at the University of New Hampshire. Mr. Flesher magnanimously named the School of Engineering in his will, and the proceeds will be used to establish the Flesher Family Engineering Legacy Fund.

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Photo credit: Larry Rippel Photography

Chuck Russell (left), ESWP Engineer of the Year, and Robert H. Luffy, William Metcalf Award recipient

Charles “Chuck” Russell Jr. (BSCE ’59, MSCE ’70) has been named 2007 ESWP Engineer of the Year. The Engineer of the Year is selected by the ESWP awards committee and is based on outstanding leadership, innovative guidance, and service to the engineering profession and to society. Russell is senior vice president of Michael Baker Corp. and is a longtime member of the Pitt Civil Engineering Alumni Club. He also serves on the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering visiting committee, and he was recognized in 1999 with the department’s Distinguished Alumni Award. For more than three decades, Russell has supported the school as a volunteer and a donor, and he has promoted the University within his company. As a member of the visiting committee, Russell has played a pivotal role in organizing and supporting the annual golf outing and monthly luncheon meetings of civil and environmental engineering alumni.

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Luffy also is a member of the School of Engineering Board of Visitors, and he received the 1997 Distinguished Alumni Award from the school.

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April 13, 2007

1. Director of Corporate Relations Don Shields (middle) visits with (L to R) Lou Barletta (BSCE ’76), John Boyd (BSME ‘76), John Burr (BSEE ’69), and Ron Stovash (BSEE ’70).

2. U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering Gerald D. Holder congratulates the Distinguished Young Alumni Award recipient, Michael J. Fasolka (BSMSE ’94), as he receives his award from Minking Chyu, chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science.

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Humberto Vainieri 2 5

BS, Chemical Engineering, 1970 MS, Chemical Engineering, 1972 PhD, Chemical Engineering, 1974 Sarasota, Fla.

Amanda Meyer Industrial Engineering, Class of 2008

3. Civil engineering alumni gather to network and share memories of Pitt: (L to R) Frank Reginella (BSCE ’61), Jim Lombardi (BSCE ’72), Cynthia Jampole (BSCE ’84) and John Coyne (BSCE ’70).

4. Craig Staresinich (BSAE ’69) shares his appreciation during his acceptance of the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science.

5. Members of the electrical engineering Class of 1956 Richard Madden and John Jurenko share a story about their student days at Pitt with Aaron Conley, executive director of development and alumni relations.

Congratulations to all the 2007 honorees. Front row (L to R): John A. Jurenko, Thomas D. Mino, Michael Bilirakis, Daniel Armanios, and Craig Staresinich Back row: Dean Holder, Michael J. Fasolka, Aldo Zini, and Dennis P. Yeskey

David and Mary Tannenbaum David: BS, Electrical Engineering, 1961 Mary: BS, Electrical Engineering, 1977;

MS, Electrical Engineering, 1979 Dallas, Texas

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school of

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. . . . . . .

Tom Sanko BS, Mechanical Engineering, 1979 Redmond, Wash.

Foundations for Greatness The Campaign for Engineering www.engr.pitt.edu/campaign

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2007 Distinguished Alumni Award Banquet

engineering school of

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH

Coming this winter: Coming Your alumni magazine December 2007: is getting a new look!

We’re getting a new look!

School of Engineering 240 Benedum Hall 3700 O’Hara Street Pittsburgh, PA 15261-3240

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www.engr.pitt.edu

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