Engineering Excellence - UH Engineering Research Milestones - Spring 2020 - 032720

Letter from the Dean The Cullen College has changed a great deal when compared to a decade ago. Both our student body and faculty population have experienced explosive growth, all while maintaining our high standards and commitment to excellence. We have been granted numerous awards for our devotion to diversity, most recently from the American Society of Engineering Education, and our student success rate has reached a record high.

UH Engineering has entered a new era of engineering excellence. From the launch of new degrees to our expansion to new parts of the city, there is a great deal of exciting change going on at our college. We are building a culture of innovation, collaboration and entrepreneurship to help find solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. We dare to pursue ambitious possibilities and engineer them into reality. I invite you to read on and see why we have been engineering excellence since 1941.

Warm Regards,

Joseph W. Tedesco, Ph.D., P.E. Elizabeth D. Rockwell Dean and Professor

ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE

University of Houston | Cullen College of Engineering

EXPANDING OUR REACH

ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE

NEW UH AT KATY INSTRUCTIONAL SITE

UH CULLEN COLLEGE EXPANDS TO

The new UH at Katy instructional site officially opened its doors to the public in August 2019. The new facility features 80,000 square feet of classroom, lab and studio space and is home to UH Engineering’s new state-of-the-art capstone design studio. Conveniently located to Houston’s Energy Corridor, UH Engineering at Katy represents a model partnership between academia and industry – one that advances innovative solutions to education and workforce challenges.

University of Houston | Cullen College of Engineering

CHANGING THE GAME

THREE NEW UNDERGRADUATE DEGREES TO DEBUT IN FALL 2020 As part of its strategic expansion to the Greater Katy area, UH Engineering will launch three new undergraduate bachelor’s degrees beginning in fall 2020, expanding the college’s total undergraduate degrees offerings from eight to eleven. The three degrees, construction engineering, systems engineering, and computer engineering and analytics, were all approved by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board earlier this year. All three degrees were designed to meet the specific needs of the Katy area and will be exclusive to the UH at Katy instructional site.

ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE

NEW OPPORTUNITIES

UH CULLEN COLLEGE INTRODUCES ITS FIRST

ENGINEERING ACADEMY IN PARTNERSHIP WITH HCC A new educational partnership between UH Engineering and HCC will launch in fall 2020, known as the UH/HCC Engineering Academy. The academy will offer students the chance to be co-enrolled in both institutions while taking their lower division courses at UH at Katy.

Dual-enrollment will provide a “best of both worlds� scenario for students along with significant financial savings. Students can choose from one of eight majors: civil engineering, computer engineering, computer engineering and analytics, construction engineering, electrical engineering, industrial engineering, mechanical engineering or systems engineering. After completing the academy in one or two years, students then transition to UH full-time to complete their degrees at either the main campus or at UH at Katy.

University Cullen of Houston College| of Cullen Engineering College of| Spring Engineering 2020

FACULTY EXCELLENCE : TOP HONORS

JEFFREY RIMER HONORED FOR WORK IN CRYSTAL ENGINEERING Jeffrey Rimer, Abraham E. Dukler Professor of Chemical Engineering at the UH Cullen College of Engineering, received the 2020 Edith and Peter O’Donnell Award in Engineering from The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas, known as TAMEST. He received the state of Texas’ top honor in engineering for his pioneering discoveries about how crystals form and how they can be dissolved.

Rimer received the 2018 Norman Hackerman Award in Chemical Research, given by the Welch Foundation to chemical scientists working in Texas and designed to encourage the fundamental understanding of chemistry. He also received the 2016 Owens Corning Early Career Award and 2017 FRI/John G. Kunesh Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, as well as multiple teaching and research excellence awards from UH. His research is recognized for its focus at the nexus of fundamental and applied science.

ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE

SETTING THE STANDARD FOR RESEARCH AND ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE

WINNER OF THE

2020

TAMEST EDITH & PETER O’DONNELL AWARD IN ENGINEERING FROM THE ACADEMY OF MEDICINE, ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE OF TEXAS

DR. RIMER IS AN INTERNATIONALLY

RECOGNIZED EXPERT IN CRYSTAL HAS PRODUCED DRUGS FOR TREATING KIDNEY STONES AND MALARIA AS WELL AS UNCOVERED CHEMICAL TECHNIQUES IN THE PETROCHEMICAL INDUSTRY .

ENGINEERING WHOSE FRONTIER RESEARCH

- AMELIE RAMIREZ, TAMEST BOARD PRESIDENT

L E A R N MO R E AT: W W W.TAM E S T.O RG

FACULTY EXCELLENCE : TOP HONORS

THREE UH ENGINEERING FACULTY MEMBERS

ELECTED TO NATIONAL ACADEMY OF INVENTORS SITE The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) has named 32 academic inventors to the February 2020 class of NAI Senior Members.

Among these are three UH Engineering faculty members: Yuhua Chen, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Hung “Harry” Le, Instructional Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Yan Yao, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Their research topics range from better batteries to improving online security.

ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE

SETTING THE STANDARD FOR RESEARCH AND ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE

University of Houston | Cullen College of Engineering

FACULTY EXCELLENCE : RESEARCH MILESTONES

Muna Naash, John S. Dunn Endowed Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Muayyad Al Ubaidi, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, received a $2.5 million grant from the National Eye Institute to study the link between macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa.

ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE

Mehmet Orman, Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, received a $1.9 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to examine the self-digestion mechanism in persister cells to eliminate these dangerous cell types.

SETTING THE STANDARD FOR RESEARCH AND ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE

Hanadi Rifai, John and Rebecca Moores Professor and Associate Dean of Research and Facilities at the Cullen College, received a $4 million award from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to reduce emissions through improvements in energy production efficiency using supercritical carbon dioxide.

Haleh Adebili, Bill D. Cook Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, received a $1.8 million sponsored research award from the George J. Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security to develop advanced multi-functional materials.

University of Houston | Cullen College of Engineering

The University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering The University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering addresses key challenges in energy, healthcare, infrastructure and the environment by conducting cutting-edge research and graduating hundreds of worldclass engineers each year. With research expenditures topping $34 million and increasing each year, we continue to follow our tradition of excellence in spearheading research that has a real, direct impact in the Houston region and beyond.

University of Houston | Cullen College of Engineering

UH Cullen College of Engineering Office of Communications Cullen College of Engineering Building 2 4722 Calhoun Road, Suite E311 Houston, Texas 77204-4009 @UHEngineering

Research MILESTONES