Engineering News - 2020

Engineering NEWS 2020

P E N N S TAT E B E H R E N D S C H O O L O F E N G I N E E R I N G

8 VR APP OFFERS GLIMPSE OF LIFE WITH DEMENTIA 4 Supermileage Team Wins Again 6 On Track to a Career in Roller Coasters 11 Behrend a Partner in $26 Million Research Initiative 12 New Biomedical Engineering Minor

DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE

In Brief

Perseverance and Pride.

These are the words that come to mind when I think of the past few months and how the faculty, staff, and students of the School of Engineering rose to DR. TIM KURZWEG the unprecedented challenges presented by COVID-19.

Our faculty persevered—transitioning from residential courses to fully remote learning in less than a week’s time. They embraced new pedagogical techniques in online education to best reach our students and maximize their teaching effectiveness. Our staff meanwhile moved to remote working and kept right on task without disruption. Our homes became our classrooms, laboratories, and offices.

Our students persevered—actively participating in remote classroom instruction and laboratory experiences. They worked to stay engaged and continue learning at the highest level. Our seniors advanced to their well-deserved graduation and our underclass students finished the semester prepared for next year’s education.

Looking back now, I’d say we did even more than persevere. Against the odds, we thrived.

And how does that leave me, as director of the School of Engineering, feeling?

I’m filled with a sense of pride. Pride in our faculty for redefining their idea of a classroom and excelling in the delivery of education in the remote space. Pride in our students for having the fortitude to master the material assigned to them in less than ideal circumstances. I hope that you share my pride in the faculty, staff, and students of our school. When you have the opportunity, please congratulate them for their successes this past term. They more than deserve it.

This past semester revealed that the people who make up our School of Engineering— students, faculty, and staff—can grow and excel even in the tough times. We’re ready for whatever challenges face us next. Our future continues to be bright.

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WOMEN IN ENGINEERING DAY 2019 This past November, Penn State Behrend’s Youth Education Outreach program welcomed more than 150 female high school students for the fourteenth annual Women in Engineering Day. Attendees enjoyed a variety of hands-on engineering workshops, such as “Design, Build, Race,” “Pipeline Challenge,” and “Polymorph Keychain Building.”

STUDENTS TEAM UP FOR PLASTCAR COMPETITION Every fall for the past fourteen years, students enrolled in the PLET 468: Rapid Commercialization course have had the opportunity to work with clients to convert hand-drawn sketches into actual products.

While it’s not unusual for engineering students to work on real-world projects at Behrend, the clients in this case are an uncommon demographic. They’re fifthand sixth-grade students from nearby elementary schools who provide designs for miniature racecars to the Behrend students, who then work closely with them to turn their concepts into reality.

The PLET students use 3D CAD software to design cars that closely replicate their clients’ sketches while meeting size and weight specifications. The cars are then 3D printed by a sponsor company before the students—young and not-so-young— team up to race their creations down a 30-meter-long sloped track at the PLASTCar Competition, held at the end of the semester.

FACULTY NEWS NEW FACULTY The school welcomed eight new faculty members: Dr. Chen Cao, assistant professor of computer science and software engineering; Dr. Myung Cho, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering; Dr. Greg Dillon, professor of engineering in plastics engineering technology; Dr. Hussin Ketout, assistant teaching professor of engineering in electrical and computer engineering technology; Jonathan (Teck Meng) Liaw, lecturer in engineering in computer science and software engineering; Susan Daigle, lecturer in engineering in mechanical engineering technology; Dr. Lokesh Saharan, assistant teaching professor of mechanical engineering; Adam Wielobob, lecturer in engineering in mechanical engineering technology; and Dr. Xiawa (Eva) Wu, assistant professor of mechanical engineering.

From left, Conference Chair Dr. Ihab Ragai, associate professor of engineering; 2014 SME President Michael Molnar; SME Executive Director and CEO Sandra Bouckley; ASME President Said Jahanmir; and SME’s Senior Director of Communications Christopher Barger.

MANUFACTURING RESEARCH CONFERENCE A SUCCESS Last June, more than 600 researchers from twenty-six countries gathered in Erie for the co-located 47th NAMRI I SME North American Manufacturing Research Conference (NAMRC) and ASME International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference (MSEC) 2019.

It was the first time Penn State Behrend hosted NAMRC and the college’s second time hosting MSEC. Chaired by Behrend’s Ihab Ragai, associate professor of engineering, the four-day conference was held at Erie’s Bayfront Convention Center, where attendees—representing academia, industry, and government—shared more than 420 technical papers and sixty posters, spanning more than 130 technical sessions.

In addition to workshops, special events, and keynote speakers, attendees took industry tours offered by Erie-area companies, including Eriez, Modern Industries, McInnes Rolled Rings, and Berry Global, as well as the research laboratory of Hero BX. “The conference showcased applied manufacturing-oriented research,” Ragai said. “We had an event at the Advanced Manufacturing and Innovation Center that included tours of the facility and labs.”

Behrend’s collaborative relationship with regional manufacturers was evidenced by nearly thirty conference sponsors.

Thanks go out to Acutec Aerospace Manufacturing USA; the National Science Foundation; GE Transportation (a Wabtec Company); Lightweight Innovations For Tomorrow (LIFT); Erie’s Bayfront Convention Center; Essentra; LORD Corporation; Hero BX; Penn State Behrend; Modern Industries; National Fuel; PNC Bank; Truck-Lite; Erie Promotions & Expos Inc.; NAMRI/SME; Penelec (FirstEnergy Company); Lascar Electronics; Kistler; Cummins; Penn State Behrend MMM Program; Translogistics; Springer; ASME; Advanced Finishing USA; Archi-Texture Finishing; Elwood National Forge; and the Erie Community Foundation.

PROMOTIONS Dr. Jun Zhou was promoted to professor of mechanical engineering. Dr. Faisal Aqlan, industrial engineering; Dr. Adam Hollinger, mechanical engineering; and Dr. Ihab Ragai, mechanical engineering technology, were promoted to associate professor and granted tenure. Phil Jones was promoted to assistant teaching professor of engineering in mechanical engineering technology. Dr. Nancy Study was promoted to associate teaching professor of engineering in mechanical engineering technology.

AWARD RECIPIENTS Five faculty members were recognized with School of Engineering awards for the 201920 academic year: Dr. Paul Lynch, assistant professor of industrial engineering, Excellence in Research Award; Jason Williams, assistant teaching professor of engineering in plastics engineering technology, Excellence in Outreach Award; Phil Jones, assistant teaching professor of engineering in mechanical engineering technology, Excellence in Service Award; Dr. Steven Nozaki, assistant teaching professor of engineering in mechanical engineering technology, Excellence in Teaching Award; and Dean Lewis, assistant teaching professor of mechanical engineering, Excellence in Advising Award.

Jill Johnson, lecturer in mechanical engineering, won the Penn State Behrend Council of Fellows Excellence in Outreach Award.

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In Brief continued

SUPERMILEAGE TEAM WINS AGAIN! Penn State Behrend’s Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) club ended the 2019 Supermileage Challenge the same way it finished the 2018 challenge: in the winner’s circle. The club earned its second consecutive first-place finish last June at Eaton Corp.’s Marshall Proving Grounds test track in Michigan. The Supermileage competition challenges teams to create vehicles that squeeze the most mileage out of a single tank of high-octane gasoline. Behrend’s vehicle circled the track with a fuel efficiency equivalent to 2,420 miles per gallon.

ALUMNUS NAMED EMERGING LEADER BY NATIONAL ACADEMY OF MEDICINE Dr. Ehsan Hoque ‘04, a University of Rochester assistant professor and expert in human-computer interaction, was named one of the 2020 Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Scholars by the National Academy of Medicine (NAM). Those chosen are from a wide range of healthrelated fields, from emergency medicine and health economics to biomedical engineering and research and public health policy.

The scholars are part of the Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Program, a NAM initiative that provides a platform for new leaders to collaborate with the academy and its members to advance science, combat challenges in health and medicine, and spark change to improve health for all. Hoque and the other members of the 2020 Scholars class will engage in a variety of activities over a three-year term beginning this summer.

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A CLUB WITH BIG BENEFITS You may think of industrial engineering (I.E.) in terms of manufacturing—how can a production process be made better? But industrial engineers reach into a lot of other sectors—such as finance, health care, insurance, and even entertainment.

Consider the process for settling an insurance claim, the layout at a concert facility, or the “Fast Pass” system at Disney Parks—they all involve systems crafted by industrial engineers.

Industrial engineers are big-picture problem solvers who optimize systems and processes. So, when Tyler Rigby ’17 and Dr. Paul Lynch, assistant professor of industrial engineering, first talked about forming a Materials and Manufacturing Group (MMG), Lynch looked at it through an I.E. lens.

“The first thing you have to consider is resources, which is why I wanted the founders to diligently set the club up with the full support of the professional manufacturing community,” Lynch said. “Then you can figure out how to use those resources to attract and benefit members. Students are busy, so you have to give them a compelling reason to attend meetings.”

DR. PAUL LYNCH

200,000 REASONS TO JOIN In the past five years, club co-advisers Lynch and Shannon Sweeney, associate professor of engineering, have given club members more than 200,000 reasons to attend meetings.

That’s the amount of scholarship dollars students in the Materials and Manufacturing Group have secured since the group’s inception.

“Every meeting starts with a rundown of manufacturing job, internship, and scholarship opportunities,” said Lynch. “After that, we have a guest speaker from the manufacturing industry.”

So, for a one-hour, once-a-month investment, members get two of the most valuable things they can acquire outside of a college classroom—professional contacts and opportunities for hands-on experience. This is in addition to learning about available scholarships.

It’s no wonder the club has grown into one of the largest on campus, with as many as seventy-five active members from engineering, business, and science programs.

The club is actually a hybrid of an existing American Foundry Society (AFS) club and a new chapter of the Association for Iron and Steel Technology (AIST). Lynch, Rigby, and other founding students worked with AFS Club adviser Sweeney to combine the two clubs into the MMG. Members are asked to join at least one of the professional organizations—AIST or AFS, which both offer low student rates.

CLUB RESULTS FROM CHANCE MEETING The club came about thanks to a chance meeting when Lynch, who had just begun working at Behrend, met Rigby, then a Mechanical Engineering student and AIST scholarship recipient, as Rigby was distributing free T-shirts from an AIST guest speaker event he had helped coordinate.

“We started talking, and I learned that Dr. Lynch had also received an AIST scholarship in the past and had a great passion

TYLER RIGBY

SHANNON SWEENEY

for metal casting,” Rigby said. “That conversation led to many more that ultimately resulted in the formation of the Materials and Manufacturing Group.”

Now a mechanical engineer at Nucor Steel in Nebraska, Rigby estimates his club experience and affiliations with AIST, AFS, and the Society of Manufacturing Engineering and the Fabricators and Manufacturer’s Association benefited him to the tune of nearly $40,000 in scholarship money.

LEARNING BY LEADING Rigby describes working with Lynch, Sweeney, and the other students who helped form MMG as one of his most rewarding experiences at Behrend.

“We were able to not only help businesses in the area, but also help our classmates find opportunities and future careers that they might not have considered,” Rigby said. “For myself, if you had told me at my high school graduation that I’d be happily working at a steel mill in Nebraska, I’d have never believed you.”

Rigby said Lynch was, and continues to be, a “fantastic mentor, professor, and friend.”

“Not only was he essential in forming MMG, but he helped me grow as a student, a leader, and a person,” Rigby said.

Lynch, a first-generation college graduate from the anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania, worked in manufacturing before becoming a faculty member, the latter a role that he believes allows him to make a difference and help people.

“Honestly, the biggest paycheck I get is hearing from students or graduates that I was able to make a positive difference in some way,” Lynch said. “That’s really why I’m here.

It makes everything I do worthwhile.”

CLUB MEMBERS GET TWO OF THE MOST VALUABLE THINGS THEY CAN ACQUIRE OUTSIDE OF A COLLEGE CLASSROOM—PROFESSIONAL CONTACTS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE. 5

ONE THRILLING

CAREER TRACK W

illiam Friedlander, who graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering this spring, can pinpoint the exact moment he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up. It was 2006, he was in the second grade, and his big brother was seated next to him on the Phantom’s Revenge, a steel coaster at Kennywood Park near his hometown of Pittsburgh.

“My brother was telling me how scared I was going to be as we climbed the first hill,” Friedlander said. “But the second we crested and started to fall, I was hooked. It was exhilarating.”

By fourth grade, he had talked his parents into taking him to Cedar Point, the “roller coaster capital of the world,” in Sandusky, Ohio. He was too short to ride the biggest coasters, but cut his teeth on the Maver-

ick, his first propulsion launch coaster. Then, with wobbling knees, he boarded the Top Thrill Dragster, which takes riders from zero to 122 miles per hour in 3.8 seconds for an adrenalinepacked 17-second ride.

“When I got off the Dragster, I had the same feeling that I did the first time I rode Phantom’s Revenge,” he said. “It just fed my obsession.”

As did K’NEX, the building toy.

When he was in fifth and sixth grade, he commandeered an entire room in his home to build an elaborate amusement park, using more than 20,000 pieces of K’NEX. “My parents were very understanding,” he said. “I just let my imagination run wild.”

But Friedlander didn’t just dream, he prepared. When he was in middle school, he e-mailed roller coaster design companies to ask for advice on being a coaster engineer. They suggested he get a mechanical engineering degree and any

experience he could working with roller coasters.

As a teen, he got a job as a ride operator on Phantom’s Revenge, the coaster that had ignited his passion. The next year, he worked on the ride’s maintenance and operations team, where he got an up-close look at the mechanics and safety features.

Friedlander chose Penn State Behrend for several reasons: “It offered M.E., had a reputation as one of the top undergraduate engineering schools, and offered the smaller class sizes I wanted,” he said.

In the fall semester of his junior year, he did his first internship/ co-op at Premier Rides, a roller coaster design company in Baltimore.

“I learned they had internships available, and I called them weekly for three months. Kathy in Human Resources and I became pretty good friends,” he said with a laugh.

He did an internship in Premier’s parts and service department. The position involved monitoring coaster parts inventory and assisting clients, but he also had the opportunity to analyze the braking system for one of the company’s rides.

“I had no background in pneumatic systems, so it was a great educational experience,” he said.

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Friedlander chose Penn State Behrend for several reasons: “It offered M.E., had a reputation as one of the top undergraduate engineering schools, and offered the smaller class sizes I wanted,” he said.

Last summer, Friedlander returned to Premier, where he worked as a project engineering intern.

“I was involved in redesigning, prototyping, and testing a lap bar for a restraint system and evaluating rider containment with another intern who had started the project before I got there,” he said.

other Mechanical Engineering majors—Hailee Crimbchin, Dakota Hetrick, and Kaitlin Peterman—designed a measurement system to analyze forces and stresses on coaster components and come up with a set of standards.

Friedlander wants you to know that roller coasters are safer than your average automobile.

Friedlander’s myriad experiences in all facets of coaster culture from operation to design to maintenance has helped him nail down exactly what he hopes to do in the industry.

“You’d be surprised to see all the safety standards and the daily inspections,” he said.

“Every single restraint is tested every day. And there are several fail-safes, which are backups for any safety feature. So even if one thing did fail, there would be two or three other means of preventing disaster.”

“I’d like to be a field engineer for a roller coaster design company,” he said. “This is the onsite engineer who builds the coaster and solves any onsite issues. People are so stressed out today. I want to build rides that give them some joy and let them escape their worries, even if only for a minute or two.”

Premier was so impressed with Friedlander and his work that it sponsored a senior capstone project. Friedlander and three

BY THE NUMBERS

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Times Will Friedlander has visited Cedar Point

14

Consecutive rides on Steel Vengeance coaster (Cedar Point)

58

Amusement parks he’s visited

298

Roller coasters he’s ridden RECOMMENDED RIDING Friedlander has ridden nearly 300 coasters. His two favorites? Steel Vengeance at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, and X2 at Six Flags Magic Mountain near Los Angeles.

20,000 Pieces of K’NEX used in the room-size amusement park he built in fifth grade

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A DEEPER PERSPECTIVE ON ENGINEERING STUDENTS DESIGN VIRTUAL REALITY SIMULATION FOR CAREGIVERS

Clockwise, from top left, Derek Furst, Dr. Omar Ashour, Tyler Concannon, and Anthony Pio meet via Zoom.

C

aring for a person with dementia can be challenging at best, overwhelming at worst. What would be basic tasks for most people—shutting off a running faucet, feeding a mewing cat, or watering a thirsty plant— can be major obstacles for a person with cognitive impairments and a source of aggravation for caregivers.

It has been said that the best way to develop empathy for another human being is to walk a mile in their shoes, but it’s hard to relate to something for which you have no frame of reference.

What would it be like if a caregiver could, for a brief time, understand what it’s like to have vision that blurs without warning, to lose minutes without any clue where they went, or to walk into one room only to find yourself in another and have no idea how you got there?

Dr. Omar Ashour, associate professor of industrial engineering, focuses his research on the use of engineering tools and methods to improve health-care delivery systems. In the summer of 2018, Ashour reached out to Dr. Dan Eaton, assistant teaching professor of nursing, to discuss a collaborative project.

Eaton, whose research interests lie in mental health and older adults, suggested they investigate how a dementia simulation would affect caregiver empathy, awareness, and preparedness.

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Ashour and Eaton started by collecting data using a current simulation tool called Dementia Live® that Ashour believed could be improved with Virtual Reality (VR) equipment.

“VR technology offers the ability to interact with virtual objects and creates a ‘first person’ experience by providing the feeling of presence,” Ashour said. “With VR, we can simulate many cognitive and sensory impairments that are experienced by people with dementia, such as visual hallucinations, tactile changes, and more.”

In the summer of 2019, Ashour and Eaton received an Engineering and Science Collaborative Research Initiative seed grant from Penn State Behrend to continue their work. Some of the grant funds were used to support a School of Engineering capstone project in which a team of Behrend students were tasked with developing the VR dementia simulation.

The students—Computer Science major Derek Furst and Software Engineering majors Anthony Pio and Tyler Concannon—worked with their capstone project adviser and project sponsors to understand the challenges dementia patients face and how they might recreate them in a VR simulation.

“It’s not just about forgetting things,” Pio said. “Individuals with dementia often have blurred vision, loss of fine motor

DEMENTIA “ This VR simulation is perfect for use with our own nursing students here at Behrend, but this is a product that can be used by anyone wishing to gain a better understanding of what life may be like for a person living with dementia.”

DR. DAN EATON, ASSISTANT TEACHING PROFESSOR OF NURSING

Derek Furst demonstrates the VR app from his home workspace.

control, reduced grip strength, tremors in their hands. It can be very disorienting.” So the students set out to create a disorienting experience that would allow caregivers to see what their patients are dealing with.

What the students couldn’t have predicted, however, is that they would find themselves out-of-sorts in their own way when they had to return home mid-semester and complete their final capstone project remotely, without any of the lab equipment they had been working with for months.

“We had to pivot to using Oculus Quest headsets as opposed to the Valve Index VR kit we had in Dr. Ashour’s lab,” Concannon said. “They are less expensive and easier to obtain, but they offer less optimization. It wasn’t ideal, but it was what we had to work with at that point.”

Fortunately, students had made significant headway on the project before COVID-19 disrupted the spring semester.

It works like this: A user puts on the VR equipment and then must complete a series of tasks—turning off an alarm, putting on their glasses, making their bed, brushing their teeth, and more—in a virtual home within a certain amount of time. They must complete each task before they can move onto the next one.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. Challenges, resembling those experienced by persons with dementia, are programmed to have users face confusion, tremors, and other cognitive and sensory impairments.

The students met several times with Eaton to learn about the various impairments, then found creative ways to simulate them using the VR equipment.

“We programmed in random noises, such as muffled voices, and also memory gaps, in which users are going through and doing their tasks, and then suddenly, they are in different room and the clock has advanced by ten minutes,” Pio said.

By the end of the semester the student team had a functional VR environment to hand off to Ashour and Eaton, who will oversee final development. They hope to have the app available for use in fall 2020.

“Numerous studies show that we can enhance the empathy of health-care professionals and students, which can lead to improvements in patient outcomes,” Eaton said.

“We hope our research, including the VR dementia simulation, will help caregivers understand dementia to better manage people who have it, reduce stress on caregivers, and prevent unnecessary hospitalization,” Ashour said.

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EMERGENCY NEED

INSPIRES INNOVATION Behrend researcher designs COVID-19 face shields, teams up with partners to mass-produce and ship them to healthcare workers

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hen the Pennsylvania Department of Health reported a critical shortage of protective equipment for medical workers in COVID-19 environments, researchers at Penn State Behrend partnered with Case Western Reserve University and manufacturing companies in Erie and Ohio to design a plastic face shield that could be mass-produced. By late April, the team was building 10,000 shields every day.

The team expects to produce nearly 240,000 face shields, which provide an additional protective barrier when working with patients who have the COVID-19 virus. Erie-built shields already have been shipped to hospitals, health-care workers, and first responders in three states.

“Our hospitals and health-care workers desperately needed this protective equipment,” said Jason Williams, assistant teaching professor of engineering at Behrend. “We had to get it to them quickly, so we tapped into a network of local companies that we knew could help.”

The project began as Williams looked at open-source designs for protective face shields. A colleague at Penn State’s University Park campus had asked

him if one of the designs, which was configured for use on a 3D printer, could be adapted for injection molding. That would allow companies to scale up their production of the shields, which have a polypropylene frame and a rubber strap.

The original design, which was configured for a 3D printer, required a minimum build time of three hours for every frame. Injection molding cut that to less than 40 seconds.

Switching to polypropylene made the shields easier to clean, and therefore safer to reuse. Headbands produced through traditional 3D printing can be sterilized only in a hydrogen peroxide vapor chamber. The new design can be sterilized in a medical autoclave, which is standard equipment in most medical settings.

Williams designed the shield with Ian Charnas, director of innovation and technology at the Sears think[box] at Case Western Reserve, and Bill Rabbitt, an engineer at Nottingham Spirk, a Cleveland-based product design company. They also developed a supply chain that includes three Erie manufacturing companies: Port Erie Plastics, which molds the frames; Munot Plastics,

which produces the shields; and Bliley Technologies, which manages logistics and distribution.

Lake Erie Transport is shipping orders at a reduced rate.

The companies are completing the work at cost, said Steve Rosenzweig, director of finance at Bliley Technologies.

“Three weeks after our first meeting, we had product on a pallet, shipping to customers,” he said. “That’s a quick turnaround, and it underscores the vendors’ commitment to this project.”

The Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority provided an early boost to the project: a $6,700 grant to pay for the initial production mold. An additional $15,600 from ECGRA provided a second mold, as well as die-cutting of the assembly’s rubber strap. That doubled production, creating 10,000 shields every day.

“We were able to move quickly because of our relationships with the manufacturing community,” said Williams, who made his design available to others at no cost, at https:// whitelabelfaceshields.com, “and with ECGRA, which has shown a consistent commitment to seeking and supporting projects that move Erie forward.”

The team expects to produce nearly 240,000 face shields, which provide an additional protective barrier when working with patients who have the COVID-19 virus.

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Behrend Becomes Partner in $26 Million Erie Research Initiative P enn State Behrend is playing a pivotal role in a partnership that will establish Magee-Womens Research Institute in Erie (MWRI Erie), a $26 million initiative that will bring locally focused clinical medical research trials to the region, improving the health of generations of women.

As the academic research and commercialization partner for MWRI Erie, Behrend will co-locate faculty members and students at the institute’s downtown facility, which will be affiliated with UPMC Hamot, and at a new biomedical research lab in the college’s Knowledge Park.

MWRI is the largest research institute in the United States devoted exclusively to women’s health and reproductive biology. Since 2007, the Pittsburgh-based institute has led the nation in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for reproductive health research. MWRI Erie is expected to draw to the region significant research funding from federal agencies, including NIH, and from national foundations, pharmaceutical and medical device companies, and others who are involved in clinical research.

The institute expects to attract up to $50 million in new funding over the next ten years. The initial funding for MWRI Erie includes a $6 million grant from The Erie Community Foundation. Of that, $1.1 million will be utilized by Penn State Behrend to build a translational research lab in Knowledge Park and create a new instructional lab in the School of Science. The college will also develop new minors in Biochemistry/Molecular Biology and Biomedical Engineering.

Faculty members, MWRI Erie researchers, and start-up ventures will use the labs to develop medical discoveries into products such as diagnostic tests and surgical devices. The Knowledge Park lab also will provide space and instrumentation for bench experiments, including human genetic studies, data analytics, and medical-device prototyping.

“As the Erie region’s research university, we are uniquely positioned to support MWRI Erie,” Chancellor Ralph Ford said.

“We can provide the academic programs and the pipeline of student talent that will sustain this initiative. By adding biomedical commercialization and support for the start-up companies that will develop from MWRI Erie, we will fuel economic growth well beyond the original vision for the institute.”

Penn State Behrend, the Hamot Health Foundation, UPMC, and the MWRI Foundation each have committed to investing a minimum of $5 million in MWRI Erie. The college is working to raise additional private funds, which will be matched by Penn State through the economic development matching gift program of the University’s “Greater Penn State for 21st Century Excellence” campaign.

The commercialization lab will be located in the college’s Advanced Manufacturing and Innovation Center, which offers 60,000 square feet of shared academic and industry space. The partnership with MWRI Erie is reflective of the college’s Open Lab model of learning and discovery, in which business leaders, faculty members, and students engage in research and product development as teams.

“To attract the highest-caliber researchers, MWRI Erie requires an experienced and respected academic partner,” said Dr. Ivor Knight, associate dean for research and graduate studies and professor of biology. “They chose Penn State Behrend because of our core capabilities in engineering and the sciences, our experience working with industry partners in applied research and technology translation, and the additional resources available to us through the larger Penn State research enterprise.”

MWRI is the largest research institute in the United States devoted exclusively to women’s health and reproductive biology.

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Penn State Erie, The Behrend College School of Engineering 242 Burke Center 5101 Jordan Road Erie, PA 16563-1701

Non-Profit Org. U.S. POSTAGE PAID State College, PA Permit No. 1

DANIEL KOVALEVICH, a Computer Science graduate from Erie, was the student marshal for the School of Engineering at spring commencement. Kovalevich is a recipient of the Christine Grzelak Engineering Leadership Award and has received the Behrend Chancellor Scholarship and Merwin Trustee Matching Scholarship. He has accepted a position as a software engineer at Microsoft.

BEHREND INTRODUCES IN-DEMAND MINOR IN BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING

T

oday, biomedical engineering is the fastest growing field of engineering. Employment is predicted to grow by 24 percent annually through 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment outlook for engineering occupations.

“Students at Behrend have been interested in a Biomedical minor for a long time,” said Dr. Yi (Elisa) Wu, professor of mechanical engineering. “Survey results have shown that about 20 percent of our students have expressed interest in the biomedical field.”

To meet the demands of the market and interest by students, Behrend began offering a minor in Biomedical Engineering last fall.

Wu said it pairs well with many engineering majors, includ-

ing Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, and Software Engineering, as well as some science majors, such as Biology.

“And with careful planning,” she said, “many students in engineering and science majors can obtain the biomed minor with just one to three additional classes.”

Additionally, faculty members and college administrators are actively pursuing research, internship, and co-op opportunities with Magee-Womens Research Institute and other medical companies in the Erie and Pittsburgh areas for students enrolled in the minor.

For more information, visit behrend.psu.edu/biomedicalminor.

Engineering News is published annually and provided free to alumni and friends of the Penn State Behrend School of Engineering by the Office of Strategic Communications, William V. Gonda, wvg2@psu.edu, senior director. Publications Manager: Heather Cass, hjc13@psu.edu. Designer: Martha Ansley Campbell, mac30@psu.edu. This publication is available in alternative media on request. Penn State is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer, and is committed to providing employment opportunities to all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status. U.Ed. EBO 20-296.

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